


Quarry

by samzillastomps



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Catharsis, Conversations, Coping Mechanisms, Death, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, Kylux - Freeform, M/M, Mourning, Neglect, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Past Relationship(s), Praise, but it's a way to heal i think, confused feelings, hinted past, some graphic makeup sex to look forward to somewhere in there, this is not a very happy story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-08-16 11:33:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 50,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8100856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samzillastomps/pseuds/samzillastomps
Summary: When his younger brother has an accident that puts him in the hospital, Mercer Hux is forced to travel back to the childhood home he ran from, back to the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. The past he left buried there in the honeysuckle-covered ridges is waiting for him upon his return, eerily untouched and seemingly ready to pick up where Hux had left off. In the misty backroads of western NC, Hux has to move forward, and he finds that while some things are worth running from, certain things are also worth standing and fighting for.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, I think posting this finished work means more to me than I thought it would. I'll be posting up all of the chapters one right after the other so that y'all can finally have a completed work from me (sorry about my others, they are in the works too).
> 
> Please see the end notes on the chapters that have a *** in the beginning notes. The *** will indicate an explanation of things that might be triggering, but those will also contain spoilers: so please look through only if you feel you need to. 
> 
> Also, it's pronounced a-pull-A-chun, not a-puh-LAY-shun. [Hermione even says so. ](https://65.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lvt40zsK8N1qdjiv0o1_500.jpg)

It had been years. That was the one repetitive thought that kept cropping up as Hux drove through the mountains with an almost animal instinct, his hands knowing just when to pull the wheel, just when to draw into a curve he thought he’d forgotten. It had been years. It was almost a point of pride, how natural it was to launch back into the mountain roads, even with the time spent away. These would be terrifying to someone who hadn’t lived most of their life within the maw of the earth. Even so, the curves were throwing him for a loop; he had to stop to get out and drag in the fresh misty air to try to quell his nausea, delaying his journey further. Pulling over, he leaned on the outside of the car to stretch his back and look up.

Hux couldn’t tell if it was the curves or the memories they brought back that made him feel sick. How many years ago was it, when he’d ridden into those corners on the back of his ex’s motorcycle, praying that this wouldn’t be how he died? At least ten.

He sighed. This was his third break. He was on a patch of loose gravel to the side of the 221, and he blinked at the constant gray surrounding him. The mountains were looming shadows, teases in the mist. He had remembered this as a green place, bright and glossy, sunshine drifting through the summer air bringing you the smell of cut grass and sweet tea. He’d remembered the Appalachian mountains as more welcoming, more homey. Maybe he had been gone too long. He couldn’t tell if they’d changed, or if he had.

It was still at least two hours’ drive to Asheville from here. Hux dragged his fingers, white-knuckled and stressed, through his tawny hair. It was long enough that he could hold it back for a moment before its layers burst free like rays of a dying sunset around his face. He wondered if Ren had kept his hair long too, if it still framed his pale skin with twilight.

He got back in the car, slamming the door a bit too hard at the thought of Kylo Ren. Hux wasn’t coming back for him, and frankly he didn’t want to ever think of him again. It had been a momentary lapse, as much instinct as the turns of the mountains had been. He sighed, trying to set himself straight. The mist felt like it was not just encapsulating him, but was coming from within his own mind. He was hazy, caught up in anxiety. He reached across the dash and grabbed up his phone. It only rang once before the person on the other line picked up.

“Mercer?”

“Hey Mom,” Hux said, cringing at his first name. “Any updates?”

“Not since you last called. He’s-” there was a rustling, a shifting of a paper dress, the scrambling of static as skin rubbed against the phone in the hospital and someone passed the receiver into a different person’s hands.

“Duke,” his sister said into the phone now, “you’ve gotta stop calling while you’re driving, it’s dangerous.”

“I’m not driving,” Hux replied, trying to keep the southern drawl he’d fought so hard to be rid of from creeping back into his voice as he talked to Avalyn. Older by seven years, she was fearsome and strong, and it made him squirm to have her tone of beratement directed at him in any way. He understood where she was coming from, though; he had called three times on the drive down from Maryland already, and all of those had been in the middle of rush hour traffic. Now, getting near nighttime and sunset, was an odd choice of time to pull over.

“If you’re not driving, you should be,” Avalyn said. “He’s still stable.”

“You update me if anything changes, y’hear?” Hux bit out, the grit of his jaw forcing the words past a lump forming in his throat.

“If he wakes up, I’ll tell him you said hi, and then call you right away,” Avalyn promised. She paused, and Hux could hear his mother in the background, crying. A gruff voice. His father. Hux could feel his heartbeat moving the simple white blouse on his breast, as if he had trapped a fluttering butterfly in his clothes. “Dad says hello,” his sister said.

“Liar,” Hux said.

“Don’t be that way.”

“I expect a call soon, Ava,” Hux said, and then on some pathetic whim, “Talk soon, Bo.”

“I love you,” she answered, as she always did, and they hung up. Hux stared out into the gray of the leaves before him, watched as a truck passed with its lights shining too bright, and decided his sister was right. He didn’t need to be moping when he could be driving. He still had a ways to go.

* * *

He pulled up to a gas station just off of Mars Hill, only a few minutes away. Still no call, still no update. Hux forced himself to walk inside just for the act of walking, forced himself to go to the restroom and take a piss, then to wash his hands very carefully because he felt like he was close to passing out. He’d already added an extra hour to his already eight hour drive from Baltimore by fucking up and cutting through North Carolina too early when he should’ve gone into Tennessee first thing, he couldn’t afford this delay.

He paused, his hands gripping either side of the sink, water still running, hair hanging in his face. He looked up at himself in the mirror, forced himself to look into his own eyes, eyes the color of leaves when they turn over for a storm. His brother had the same eyes, and there was a sinking, desperate feeling in Hux’s heart. A small voice in the back of his brain told him that he was only going to see that green again in mirrors, like this, in his own gaze. Ingram was never going to wake up.

The thought pierced through him like a shot, sending burning sickness into his gut where it sat and churned thickly. Hux launched himself backwards into the stall, leaving the tap still flowing, barely making it to his knees in time to retch into the toilet bowl.

Of course nothing came up. He hadn’t eaten or drank anything since he had started this journey, since he’d gotten the call that Ingram had been hit. He’d just driven immediately, drunk on a cocktail of his own endorphins and desperation. And now he was considering turning back. He’d rather do that than go into the hospital room and see his younger brother with tubes running through him, crisscrossing like lines on a map Hux hadn’t even had to look at to find his way home.

He should go for his mother. His mom was never good at stuff like this, was always worried and sad and sickeningly emotive. He should go for Ava. She was strong enough without him, strong enough to support everyone, but who was going to support her? Not their parents. He should go for his father, even though Elijah Hux probably wanted him to stay far away from the hospital. Elijah would send him away, Hux was almost certain, but he had to try. He had to show that he wasn’t as much of a hateful fuck as his father thought him to be.

And where should Hux go for himself, afterwards? It was already late. His family, with his dad’s connections, were gonna all stay overnight at the hospital in Asheville. Where would he go after he left the corpse of his family behind?

He smirked. That thought sounded more like Ren’s than his own. Always dramatic, always waxing poetic, always in his head. He was more like him than he’d figured, Hux thought to himself. It was not a comfort. Hux wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, spit bile into the toilet, then stood. He washed his hands again, finally turned the tap off, and left with a renewed sense of calm to head to his car.

* * *

Driving up to the hospital reminded Hux of how close he’d come. He had almost gone pre-med, had thought that in some other life he would have made a fantastic surgeon. He parked the car and sighed deeply. He caught a whiff of his own cologne, a subtle spice that matched his expensive aftershave, and it steeled him. He was not a child. He was closer to thirty than he was to thirteen, and he was going to walk in there and hold his brother’s hand like a man.

His feet beat out a sharp staccato against the pavement, one that matched the pounding of his nervous heart, and when the glass doors slid open for him of their own volition he felt his pulse skyrocket. Hux swallowed hard, trying to focus. Where was the visitor’s information? There was a help desk, but the woman at it looked like she was busy inputting some sort of chart into a computer. The other two chairs by her were abandoned, maybe some late night call besides Ingram’s that had pulled them to the doctors’ sides.

“Excuse me?” Hux asked, striding up to the information booth as if his palms weren’t cold with sweat. “I’m here to visit my brother.”

“Name?”

“His? Or mine?”

“His please, sir,” the attendant said, flicking her eyes up briefly to meet Hux’s.

“Ingram Hux,” he replied. “He’s seventeen, has dark red hair, kind of tall--” Hux cut himself off. He was rambling. Nervousness, eagerness, unchecked affection for his brother- they were warping his social skills. The attendant nodded, not seeming to care.

“Let me get your picture and signature and I’ll print off an ID badge for you, mister…?”

“Mercer Hux,” he answered, forcing himself to remain neutral even though saying his name made him want to scowl. He posed for the picture, endeavoring not to look like a sleep-exhausted serial killer. It didn’t work, but he dutifully stuck the signed mugshot on his chest before proceeding to the elevator that would take him up to the seventh floor.

The facilities at the hospital seemed to be expensive and clean. He was grateful that his father was a proud and stubborn man, at least for small silver linings like this. Ingram would be comfortable here. The thought burned at Hux’s chest. No, he tried to convince himself, Ingram will be comfortable at home when he wakes up and asks why he has to wear an eyepatch from now on. He will wake up. He has to.

The halls Hux walked through were quiet, save for the occasional beep of a machine or click of a tool on a tray. It unnerved him, leaving him feeling as if he had broken into the home of another person and was trying to burgle something sacred without getting caught. When he got to the room Ingram was in, he knocked, just to break up the silence.

“It’s open,” his mother called right as Avalyn opened the door for him. She sighed happily, as if Hux’s presence bolstered her somehow.

“You look awful, Duke.”

“So do you,” he said, smirking. “When did you last shower?”

“Yesterday, thank you,” she replied, grinning back at him. She brought up her hand, placing it on his shoulder and squeezing gently. Hux reached up, gripping onto her cold fingers tightly. “He’s just past the curtain,” she said, keeping her voice steady. Already, Hux could see tears forming at the edges of her eyes, glazing over the beautiful, bloodshot blue pools. She brought a tissue to her nose, nodding to herself, as if she had expected this to happen. As if she had expected to keep it together only until Hux could arrive, and he would take it from there. “Mercer… he looks bad.”

“I’m sure I look worse,” Hux tried to joke, but it fell flat. Avalyn gritted her teeth, and Hux felt like he could see himself in her resigned expression.

“Like I told you on the phone before,” she said softly, “his seatbelt saved him.” She paused, biting her cheek hard, like she was punishing herself, or keeping herself from saying the words _for now_. She sighed. “I didn’t tell you everything. His friend in the passenger’s seat wasn’t so lucky. He was decapitated on impact with the semi. Ing was thrown forward, not up, so he just caught his teeth and temple against the edge of the window when the airbag shot out.”

“Ava-”

“I need you to know what happened,” she said, her eyes frantic and her voice a low hiss. “I need to get it out.” Hux felt her hand tightening clawlike in his clavicle and he winced, both at his name and at the pain sprouting from her fingertips.

“Okay. Relax. Please.” He pried her hand off of his shoulder and held it in both of his, closing the door behind him and stepping fully into the room. His mother had not come out to meet him. He was mildly surprised at this, even though he shouldn’t have been. “Tell me everything.”

“Ing got banged up pretty bad, and they had to take his left eye. It was crushed along with his cheekbone, and they couldn’t save it.” Hux took a step back, reeling at the memory of the last time he had looked fully into his brother’s eyes. How long ago had it been? Avalyn caught him, steadied him, and he took several deep breaths before she continued. “He was conscious when they brought him into the ER, but he slipped away right after I first called you. Doctors say that chances are he’ll come out of it. For now, he’s on some machines to help ease his pain and some to help his breathing.”

“Is that all?” Hux asked, his voice husky and dark. He felt his throat closing. He needed to be done with this.

“That’s it,” Avalyn said. She sighed deeply. “I’m really glad you’re here.”

“I won’t be staying at the hospital,” Hux whispered. “But I’ll find a place nearby. I’ll be on call.”

“You do what you need to,” his sister said, not even offering to allow him to stay at her home because she knew Hux would refuse outright. And asking his parents was another dead end. He brought Ava’s hands up, kissed her fingers, and then gently nudged past her to pull back the curtain.

The scene was almost beautiful. Ingram was washed in soft buttery light from a reading lamp Hux’s father had put on. The sheets were his favorite color, a cool baby blue that would have normally made his eyes shine. If Ing had been awake, he’d be delighted. His hands, normally fiddling with something, lay still at his side. One had a needle taped into his vein, the white almost blending with how ashen Ingram’s skin had become. At his feet, Hux’s mother lay asleep, her blonde hair in delicate ringlets all about her shoulders. She was wearing her favorite peach bathrobe, and Hux could smell the familiar gardenia bath salts she used from here. Her hand was outstretched across Ingram’s feet, towards where Hux’s father sat reading a book. He did not so much as glance up when Hux sat down by Ingram’s shoulder.

“Hey Ing,” Hux whispered, not knowing what to say in a time like this. Ingram’s head was bangaged, bleeding slightly through in yellows and crimons, like rust on a statue. One eye was covered up, one simply closed. The left side of his face looked oddly concave, a fact that made Hux’s hands tremble. “I heard you got pretty banged up, but I didn’t know it was this bad.” He felt silly, childish, as if he were being forced to play pretend with dolls he had outgrown long ago. He shook his head, shook it free of that cruel comparison, and forced himself to place his hand on Ingram’s sternum. He watched as his hand rose and fell with the machine’s quiet pumps. His fingers steadied as he felt the pulse of his brother’s heart beneath them.

“He’s just resting,” Elijah said. The idiocy of the statement threatened to break Hux’s heart, probably would have if he hadn’t seen the icy look of hatred his father shot his way.

“He’s been through a lot,” Hux replied, his voice calm and devoid of emotion. He wanted to ask so many things, wanted to turn and ask Avalyn if she thought Ing was dreaming. Hux, however, had the sense to keep his mouth shut.

“He asked for you,” his father said, still not looking up at Hux fully. Hux frowned, disbelief painting his features a dark wash of gray. Ingram wouldn’t have asked for Hux, surely, of all people. He would have called for Avalyn. Or his friends.

His father sighed deeply. The lines on his face were deeper grooves now, deeper than five years ago when Hux had last seen him, when Hux had last seen them all. Elijah looked up, his eyes ringed with bags and veins from crying. Hux automatically swallowed. He had never seen his father sad before now. Angry, drunk, threatening-- but never sad. Elijah took a steadying breath, and repeated, “He asked for you, before he slipped away.”

“I’m here,” Hux said, more to Ingram than his father, but it was the latter who answered.

“And where were you when he called?”

Hux looked up, glaring, barely retaining the cold inside of himself.

“I was dropping everything, driving down from Baltimore as fast as humanly possible, Father.”

“You. Weren’t. Here.” His father stared, judgments from years ago resurfaced.

“And whose fault is that?” Hux rebounded before he could stop himself. His father’s eyes burned into him, reminding him that he’d chosen to go. He’d chosen it all. Hux looked down, defeated.

“It should have been you,” Elijah muttered, low enough that Hux felt he wasn’t even meant to hear it. Somehow, it made it worse. Hux's mouth fell open, his jaw slack. He had no reply. He wasn’t here to suffer in Ingram’s place, his father was right. And now his little brother was half a person, unconscious in an ocean of hospital blankets and gauze. Tears, childish and helpless, formed at the corner of Hux’s eyes. With a curl of his lip, he blinked them back.

“Mmm,” his mother groaned, stirring. Hux stared at his father, watched as he turned his gaze devoid of love or gratitude back to the book he was reading. “Ingram?” his mother whispered. Hux turned, realized she was looking up at him, saw the shock flood into her eyes when she recognized him. “Oh, Mercer-”

“It’s alright Mom,” Hux said.

“You just look so much alike. I didn’t-”

“I know.” He cut her off with what he hoped was a kind smile. From the look of concern on her face, it was anyting but. Hux glanced around, didn’t see Avalyn’s shadow outside the curtain anymore. Maybe she had gone to get coffee. He needed something like that too, something acidic and warm and bitter to swallow. He needed it more than anything, especially with the saccharine way his mother was weeping on his hand, the one that was not connected to the faint heartbeat of his younger, softer self. Hux broke from her touch, as gently as he could, and pressed that hand into Ingram’s.

“I’m here, Ing,” he whispered, standing up to lean down by Ingram’s ear, the one not bandaged and gauze-covered. He didn’t want his father hearing them, hadn’t that been how it was between them? _Don’t tell Father, but I don’t want to be a doctor. Don’t tell Father, but I like a boy. Don’t tell Father, but I’m going to run away._ Hux swallowed, hating North Carolina, hating his family, hating himself.

The door opened, and he heard Avalyn’s throat-clear, a nervous tic she had when she was close to crying.

“Don’t tell Father,” Hux whispered in his brother’s ear, “but he’s right. I should have been here. It should have been me.” He clenched Ing’s hand hard. No response. Why would there be? Hux felt the tears coming harder now, more insistent. He had to leave, had to get the fuck out of here. “I love you,” he said thickly, his mouth cottony with regret, warping the words to sound more forced than he'd meant for them to. Before his mother could paw at him further, he slipped past the curtain and away from the scene of constant vigil. He turned to Avalyn as he left. “I’ll find a hotel nearby,” he promised. “You call me when he wakes up.”

“I promise, as soon as he wakes up,” Ava swore.

But her call in the gray dawn of early morning was not to signal that Ingram had woken. Hux’s phone went off at half past two, vibrating on the nightstand beside the twin bed he’d rented from a cheap motel just down the block. He picked up, relief flooding him too soon, too eagerly. As soon as he heard Avalyn’s hitching breath, Hux knew without her saying, and he felt himself falling away. He focused on the gray filigree of the wallpaper, focused on the rough fabric of the emerald green duvet under his fingertips as the hand clutching the phone to his ear dropped down to his side.

Ingram was gone, despite multiple attempts to resuscitate him. He died only four hours after Hux had left his side.


	2. Chapter 2

His blazer was too tight, a relic from high school, from when he used to go to church with his mother. Puddles reflected building siding, reflected the rainclouds above. Windows to the inside glowed damp yellow, showing him a glimpse inside where people lined up to shake hands with his father and steady his swaying mother. His sister, her blue eyes more red now from the tears, stood by the casket. It was open out of some stubborn, misplaced pride, with half of Ingram's face covered with a black and red eyepatch and a wig that closely matched what had been his hair color. His tie, the one bought specially for his funeral, was also black and red. They were his school colors. There were flowers, too, so many that Hux had felt claustrophobic enough to retreat to the rain outside. White and baby blue, baby’s breath and lilies, bluebells melting into wreaths with ribbons that read Elijah Ingram Hux in pearlescent puffy paint. Hux turned from the windows, brought a shaky hand to his mouth, and sucked smoke deep into his lungs. He looked back to the cold asphalt as the rain drops seemed to grow thinner, suspending themselves in midair. He could barely feel his knuckles, was shivering in the cold as he waited for everyone to just fucking leave.

The puddle at his feet showed him everyone as they filed out, showed him shadows of the people he had left behind, the people who overlooked him as they walked to their pickup trucks draped in crosses and camouflage, to their sedans with family stick figures stuck on the back windows. He avoided his own gaze as he watched the nearest puddle at his feet ripple from the wind. He tucked himself into the umbrella further to ignore the pastel bellies of the leaves surrounding him on the edge of the funeral home parking lot. He focused only on continuing to breathe.

* * *

 

Suits. A sea of suits. He was drowning in them, sitting beside his sister in a church that cast light through its windows the way a swimming pool cast light underneath the water’s surface. He hadn’t been in a church in ages. When he’d stepped in that morning he’d half expected to turn to dust, a thought that had made him snort derisively. Ava must have thought it was a sob, because she had grabbed his hand and hadn’t let go since.

A picture of Ingram was on the altar. There he was. Hux stared, unable to look away, his eyes drawn magnetically to the ones before him as the priest rambled about the afterlife. There he was. So handsome. Grown up. His eyes, duller than Hux had remembered. His smile, forced. His hair was neatly combed to the side, mirroring the stern way Avalyn had pulled her auburn hair back today for the funeral.

“His last school picture,” his mom had sobbed when giving it to the funeral director.

His mother wasn’t sobbing now. It was as if she were frozen, as if they were all frozen. They were the corpses of their former selves, floating listlessly near each other in the vaguely colored ocean of catholic daylight. The sounds, all the words were muted as if traveling through water. Avalyn’s fingers gripped Hux’s so tightly that he could feel his own pulse in his knuckles. He clung back, clung to the idea that he was still alive, if only for this moment.

When the priest finished his sermon and the pallbearers stood, Hux felt himself slipping. He hadn’t been asked to carry his brother’s body out. It fell to his father and his father’s friends. Hux watched, helpless, as they lifted the black wood high above them, as they moved to the graveyard out back. Hux flexed his fingers free from his sister’s with difficulty.

“I’m going to the restroom,” he said to Ava. “I’ll meet you out there.” His sister nodded, his mother already being pushed along by the wave of mourners. Hux watched until they had all left, and one of the priests asking him if he would be following. The light of the cloudy day outside cast shadows of angular reds and blues across the older man’s face as Hux swallowed back tears.

"It would mean a lot to everyone if you would throw a rose for your brother," the priest said. Hux had to grit his teeth against the image of looking down at his brother's coffin in a hole of cold dirt.

“Sure. I’ll be out in a second,” he lied. The priest nodded, giving him his space, and Hux looked back to his brother’s picture. He glanced at the wreaths surrounding him, dark forest green, the color of a hotel duvet and the mountains he remembered from way back when. He felt the urge to go up and run his fingers over the silk ribbons, to feel the glimmering embossed letters under his fingertips. Instead, he took his pack of cigarettes from his front pocket and left the church through the side door, so that he would be far behind the crowd but still facing the maple-lined graveyard they were walking through.

He observed the procession until it crested the hill and left him alone on the edge of the metal fence. He tried to move his feet. He felt wooden, cold. His brother must be even colder.

Hux lit a cigarette and turned away from the funeral procession, the yellow glow of the flame briefly coloring his monochromatic world before everything faded once more into nothing.

* * *

 

“Duke, get me the dishes… the ones from the living room,” Avalyn said sharply, knocking Hux from his stupor.

“Right.”

He walked in to the living room, wading through the sea of black suits, and picked up dishes as he went. The room was filled with a quiet, respectful chatter, broken only by the lull of sobs from Ingram’s friends. A boy, dark skin and wide eyes, swiped tears away from his face. A girl with her hair pulled back from her face stared at the ground, immobile. Parents, older and rounder, ate as if they could fill the empty space Ingram had left behind with some deviled eggs.

Several people stopped Hux along the way. Hux told himself it was getting easier. He shook hands and put on a brave face with just the expression he needed to, just to show that he cared what they thought. Their words fell on deaf ears. He couldn’t remember any platitudes, couldn’t bear to absorb anymore apologies. They slid off of him as he walked like living cellophane through the crowd of mourners.

He was almost near the kitchen, having done a full circle with his arms now full of appetizer plates and silverware, when he heard the murmur from behind him.

“Heard that Ingram was drunk when it happened,” someone said, their tone barely audible. Another person clucked, and Hux felt rooted to the spot. “Is there anything more tragic?”

“Senseless,” whispered someone behind a mouthful of ambrosia salad. “It’s a pointless death. So young, so much potential.”

“Heard the family of the other kid, Brent, is thinking of suing the Huxes.” Sad clucking. “To think, Brent was getting ready to start applying to colleges, and Ingram was on his way to a full ride to the university of his choice.”

“More like his father’s choice,” the second person answered, snorting as if they were rooting for truffles.

“The Huxes must have it so hard. Bless their hearts,” came the standard reply.

Hux felt his hands growing numb and tingly, anger threatening to lash out and unleash him onto whoever had dared talk about Ingram like that. But he culled it. He used it to send energy to his shoes, picked them up one by one, marched himself into the kitchen. Ava was there, washing at the sink.

“Thank you,” she said when Hux set them down. “Do you know where Mom went to?”

“Still upstairs, having a lie-down,” Hux answered.

“And Dad?”

“I haven’t seen him,” Hux lied. Their father was out on the porch facing the woods behind their house, smoking a cigar, sitting in silence with his war buddies. He was not to be disturbed.

“Well, I appreciate you being around to help me at least,” Ava said, scrubbing hard with a sponge at the most recent crusted-on canape. “The neighbors are great, sure, but they don’t understand how it can be with them.”

“Yeah.” She meant with their parents. With their emotionally distant father, their frail, guilted mother; the siblings had only ever had each other. Until Hux had left, leaving them as two to defend against two. An unfair fight, one they had been destined to lose-

“Snap out of it,” Avalyn said sharply.

“Out of what?” Hux replied, immediately picking up dishes in the rack to wipe them dry and put them up. It was faster this way, and besides, Avalyn was running out of room. She washed dishes like a madwoman, in a flurry. He needed to try to keep up.

“You’ve been zoning out ever since the day before the wake.”

“I haven’t been sleeping well,” he said, and it wasn’t a lie. Hux sighed, not wanting to think about the way his brother had looked in the open casket at his viewing. He hadn’t slept since. “Your pull-out couch is hard as a rock, Bo.”

“Don’t change the subject. You’re…” she flicked a few bubbles of soap around, trying to think with her hands. “You’re internalizing. You’re punishing yourself. You need to get out, do something.”

“With who? The neighbors? With Father?” He scoffed, the sound sad in the back of his throat, dying at the edge of his teeth. Avalyn sucked in air through her teeth.

“Be serious.”

“I am serious. I have nobody but you,” Hux said.

“Duke…”

“Hush!” He set the plate down hard, and they both looked at it afraid of the crack. One didn’t form. He was lucky this time. He sighed, trying to calm himself. “I know you mean well. But I don’t want to be pitied any more.”

“That’s not what anyone is doing.”

“Admit it. Everyone feels so fucking sorry for us. You, the oldest, having to bury the youngest. Me, the brother who looks exactly like him, who--” Hux cut himself off, afraid what he would say if he kept speaking.

“I don’t pity you,” Avalyn said, ignoring the way Hux’s fists were clenched on the countertop, or maybe just not noticing.

“You don’t fucking count,” Hux replied, before he could check how it sounded. She flinched as if he had hit her, as if he had channeled his father. Hux took a step back, allowing her space, afraid of crowding her. “Wait. I’m sorry.”

“I think you’d better go,” she said, staring down into the sink at the dirty dish water. They stood there, silent, and Avalyn snapped with a ferocity that Hux hadn’t seen since he was little. “I said go!” she shouted, turning and tossing the sponge into the sink so that it splashed back up on her black dress. Hux stayed, watched her right her posture in the same way that he did when threatened. He watched her bring her eyes, bright as bluebells, to his. “Go, Mercer. I can’t have us take this out on each other. I need you to leave.”

“Fine,” Hux said, throwing the dishtowel on the rack. “I’ll be by your place to get my stuff later.”

“Mercer-”

“Stop calling me that!” Hux yelled, and realized that everyone outside of the kitchen had gone silent. Sniffles and hiccups were piercing through the thick mist of grief, but other than that everyone was listening for the drama the Huxes were unleashing on one another. Hux stood straighter, turned on his heel, and left his family’s house, resisting the urge to slam the screen door behind him as he bounded down the brick steps.

* * *

 

There wasn’t much to do where they lived, over by Allenstand. It was an hour’s drive into the nearest city, and he didn’t feel well enough to do it alone. His hands hurt, tingled still. Hux found himself walking, just wandering along, walking back towards the cemetery. Once that image came back to his mind, once he imagined he could feel the cold iron fence in his hands, Hux stopped.

What had stopped him? He hadn’t watched his brother being lowered. He hadn’t seen them shovel on fresh earth. He had only seen the sea of black receding as he stayed on the outskirts, saving himself. Hux turned heel, going in a random direction, anywhere but towards the cemetery. That’s how, even after having lived there half his life, Hux ended up completely lost in his hometown.

It was only when he stopped being able to recognize places as familiar that Hux managed to calm himself. The lack of anything or anyone around was actually a blessing. He started to absorb more, to drink in his surroundings. He was wandering close to the rock quarry, most likely. He figured this because of the gravel underfoot and the lush vegetation that was starting to spring up. Had this been nearer to the city limits, the trees and plants would’ve been cleared away for more asphalt and townhouses.

Beautiful green leaves, scattered with low-hanging clouds of fog, filled his vision. No wonder he had a headache, the pressure here combined with the elevation was ridiculous. Glancing down, Hux saw his shiny black boots were scuffed gray with streaks of crushed pebbles. His pressed suit was dusted with mist droplets and golden pollen from honeysuckle he brushed up against. He was being kissed by the mountain itself, it seemed; it was the kindest touch he’d received since he’d gotten back to North Carolina.

He walked along the road as it yawned into a valley, opening up by a creek as mountains sprung up on either side. The trees were cleared back enough for cars to get through, and some old businesses still operated here. A yellowed, peeling, sun-bleached sign for gas and icey-pops. A rusted lawn chair out front, its white plastic long-faded into a beige color, no longer slick and new but cracked and fit to break. Dandelions in the sidewalk that seemed to spring up, weather-beaten, underneath of his feet beside the gravel fading to asphalt. Past the corner store, there were some houses. Long, sloping yards stretched up into the wilderness of the Appalchias, and Hux knew that just past there was Tennessee. He could walk to it, if he just didn’t stop.

“Hey,” someone shouted. Hux ignored them, whoever they were. They were from around here, which meant it was nobody he should be concerned with. He had a thought, suddenly, that he would shave his head. He would rid himself of Ingram’s likeness. That would be nice.

“Hey!”

He would go home, not to his hometown but to the place he’d moved on to. He’d drive back and take his time, maybe go past Grandfather Mountain on the way. Why not take the most scenic route? Why not go down further south while he was at it? He was the boss, he could do everything required of him from a laptop. He could do whatever he wanted, he was in control.

“Hux, is that you?” the voice asked, and Hux shot an angry glare at the black pickup that had pulled up alongside of him. “It is,” the man said, one arm hanging over the open window. “Man. You look like shit.”

Hux stopped in his tracks.

“Ren?” It was him, Hux was sure of it, but the man seemed to flinch at the name. Maybe he was just doing it because it was in Hux’s voice. “Kylo Ren?” No. It was a flinch. He closed his eyes against the name and patted the open window.

“Get in.”

“I…” Hux hesitated. There was too much to say. What was the last thing Hux had said to him? When had he said it? Hux needed to say everything, suddenly, at once, with such urgency that nothing came out but a small squeak. He cleared his throat, tried again. “You… you’re driving on the wrong side of the road, you know,” he stammered.

“It’s alright.” Ren wasn’t smiling, and nothing felt right about this. “Now get in.”

Hux was in no mood to argue. Whatever was going to happen, it would happen whether he liked it or not. He remembered not to slam the door, and he adjusted the passenger seat to accomodate his long legs. When he was buckled, Ren popped the stick shift into first and they were off with the wind in their hair.

Hux allowed himself to glance over only once, to take the man in. Hux had finally caught up to him in height in the past couple of years, he’d assume they were about the same. Ren’s build was still larger, muscular, imposing. His hair was still the same length, still with a slight wave, still thick. It was streaked with a gray hair or two, or maybe it was a trick of the light. Funny. He was younger than Hux by two years, and he was already graying like an old hound. Hux snorted and looked out the window at the scenery as they drove away in the same direction Hux had been walking.

“Where are you taking me?” Hux asked, having to raise his voice against the air whipping in from the open windows.

“To my place.”

“I don’t want to go there.”

“What other options you got?” Ren asked. Hux was silent, glaring. Ren seemed to read his mind, know that he was thinking about Avalyn. He turned back to the road and added, “Your sister called me.”

“Figures. The traitor.”

“She was worried about how you left.”

“Yeah, well, she was the one who told me to.”

“You should be more patient with her. After the funeral and everything-”

“Did you go, did you see it?” Hux asked, blurting the soft question before he could think. He was desperate to know, even though he’d been the only one to stop himself from seeing firsthand. He’d asked Avalyn how it was, how it had looked, and she couldn’t tell him without crying. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, what he needed to hear about it, but the unrest he was left with threatened to crush him. Ren was wearing a black suit, maybe he had come from church or maybe he had been there when they had lowered Ingram’s body into the dirt. Maybe he had thrown a rose down, maybe the one Hux had been meant to. Hux turned to Ren, his eyes desperate. “Ren-”

“Don’t.” Ren frowned, taking his eyes off the road only to shoot Hux a withering stare. “I need you to stop calling me Ren. It’s Ben, remember? And… no.” His voice got quiet, barely audible over the wind. “I didn’t go.”

Hux sat back, feeling empty and lost. He watched as they took side road after side road; he was jostled as the grooves from fresh rains made amateur speedbumps that the shocks on Ren’s truck couldn’t handle very well, but even that wasn’t enough to snap him out of whatever this was. He stared straight ahead, at all of the leaves as they started to show their underbellies against a darkening morning sky. That pale green. Hux wanted to gouge his own eyes out.

They pulled into a parking lot filled with potholes and puddles, all gravel, because naturally it was an extension of the rock quarry. Of course Ren hadn’t gotten out of the small town, out of the business that had put his mother on the map after his father had left them. Hux bet he'd still find olivine and gemstones in the front of the warehouse, polished and pretty for tourists to touch. Hux glanced around, saw Organa’s name on everything. No Solo’s. So either her son had caved and taken Organa’s last name, which didn’t seem likely, or Ren didn’t own any of it himself. Figured.

Ren parked in front of the main store-front, a dismal brick building that smelled of dust and clay and rusted metal. Hux let his head tilt forward, trying to inhale the scent of his aftershave. He caught a whiff, but it wasn’t his own. He’d found it in the medicine cabinet at his sister’s place. It must have been Ava’s ex-husband’s. A ghost of who she had been before, who she had loved before.

Hux had worn it without thinking. He had seen it, thought stupidly that somehow in her ever-knowing wisdom that Avalyn had chosen it to put in her master bathroom in case Hux had ever cared to visit her, in case he had ever come home. He hadn't even thought twice about wearing it. No wonder she'd been so tense, so sharp. The thought made his chest feel too tight, like it was close to caving in.

He leaned forward and held his head in his hands. No wonder his sister had raised her voice so quickly. On top of everything, to have that reminder. Hux really did need to leave, immediately--

“I need you to get up and come with me,” Ren said. His voice was firm, but he sounded concerned. Hux laughed through his fingers, trying to will himself to feel something besides the insurmountable regret that was pooling inside of himself.

“Am I scaring you?”

“In a way. I expected you to react strongly, but I never expected you to break so easily,” Ren said in a low voice that was husky with disappointment. Hux glanced up, his face now numb to match his hands. He couldn’t feel his nose, or his cheeks. They tingled as if they were asleep.

“Fuck off,” he sneered.

“As much as I’d love to, I owe Ava one,” Ren said, moving forward and opening Hux’s car door without his permission. Hux couldn’t control his breathing any longer. It was fast, too fast, panicked, shallow, painful. Ren unbuckled Hux’s seatbelt, and just that proximity was too much. Hux leaned forward, passing out in a dead faint against his ex-boyfriend’s shoulder.

* * *

 

Hux opened his eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling. That pressure, the mist from the mountain pressing in, was back. His head hurt. He closed his eyes, stirring slightly under a too-warm quilt that someone had thrown haphazardly across his torso. His legs were uncovered and his socked feet were hanging off of the edge of whatever he was sleeping on. Hux could smell a woodstove, cedar smoke barely flitting around the edge of his nostrils. It was comforting, even in September. It meant fall was almost here, Ingram would be playing his last year of football--

Hux sat up despite the headache, sat up away from the memory of his brother dressed in black and red. He pressed his palms against his eyes, willing his memory to wipe away the image of Ing smiling proudly, two streaks of black on his face, the perfect son, the perfect teenager. Hux kicked out at the image, banishing it, and when he felt hands on his shoulders he flinched.

“Breathe,” Ren said, ordering Hux. His deep voice was soothing, familiar, something to cling to besides the memories. Hux nodded, swallowing and forcing himself to count his breaths in and out. “Breathe more slowly, or you’re going to pass out again.”

“What do you care?” Hux asked.

“Stop talking. Focus on your breathing,” Ren said. Without Hux’s permission, Ren sat down behind him in the soft folds of whatever they were siting on and enfolded him in a slow embrace. Hux leaned back automatically, his breathing calming despite his spiking heartbeat. Ren smelled warm, like the woods. He smelled like sweaters. He was the chill in the air that Hux looked forward to in Maryland, only because it reminded him of home. Guiltily, he felt himself reacting deeply to Ren’s arms.

“You want me to call you Ben?” Hux asked. His voice was disdainful, it covered the sadness underneath. “Really?”

“That’s my name, isn’t it?” the man holding him replied. One of his hands was nonchalantly rubbing soothing circles across Hux’s chest. Hux had never experienced this emotional onslaught before. He felt grief, sadness, but they were both eclipsed within Hux by such a strong desire for the man behind him that he thought he would die from it.

“You’re not Ben. At least, you weren’t before,” Hux said softly, as if testing whether he could get Ren back, or if he would have to content himself with this shell of the boy he’d dated so long ago. “You’re still calling me Hux,” he whispered, almost to himself, as if that proved that Kylo Ren was still here with him, that Ben Solo hadn’t stuck.

“I can switch if you like. What is it that Ava calls you? King, or some shit?”

“Duke.”

“I can call you that.” Ren leaned forward, pulling Hux even more fully against the length of him. “Or I can call you by your first name.”

“I hate that name just as much as you hate yours,” Hux murmured.

“I don’t mind it, if you’re the one saying it,” Ren breathed back. Hux stifled a gasp, and Ren whispered into his neck, “If it’s you, maybe it’ll feel alright again.”

“What are we doing?” Hux asked, lulled and aflame at once. He felt drunk on emotions, unable to choose which one to follow. Part of him was close to tears, close to a breaking point. The other part of him barely held back a groan at the luxury of being encased in Kylo’s arms. “Why do you feel so fucking good?”

“Because I know you, and I know what you like,” Ren replied, nuzzling against Hux’s ear. Hux whimpered. He hated that, hated how deeply that tiny caress stirred him. Ren did know what he liked. This was dangerous. This was over, had been over for a long time. He should leave.

“Let me up,” Hux said quietly, and it came out so pathetic and yearning that Hux cringed. He wouldn’t have listened if he’d heard that tone of voice from someone else. Ren obliged, however, pulling his arms away from Hux and sitting back. Hux glanced around.

This was a one-room apartment. Over by the stairs down to what he assumed was the parking lot, that would be the bathroom. There was a sink lining the wall with a simple countertop and some cabinets. The corner was complete a fridge and an oven and a trashcan and a cupboard. To the right, there was a television, angled for watching in bed. So that was where they were. In Kylo Ren’s bed.

Hux turned to him, staring at the almost stranger before him as Ren pulled his chocolate-colored blanket over his shoulders. The effect of the small gesture was staggering; Ren seemed to transform before his eyes to the boy Hux had snuck out with in high school, the boy he’d followed into caves and forests and deathtraps. Before him was the boy he’d loved.

“It’s been a while, huh?” Ren asked. Hux didn’t know if he meant since Hux had last seen Ren in person, or since Hux had gotten laid. Either way Ren meant it, Hux’s reply would be the same.

“Yeah. Four years.”

“How have you been?”

“Better,” Hux said coldly, laughing to himself. He shook his head at Ren’s amazing small talk skills, and added, “What do you owe my sister for?”

“None of your business,” Ren said quietly, his face a mask of chill as well. Hux narrowed his eyes.

“Did you and her-”

“No.”

“Alright then.”

“Did you think I would?”

“I don’t assume to know your weaknesses the way you know mine,” Hux said, trying to keep from feeling anything within those words. It was difficult. There was a sad pull from his core, but also the telltale hot liquid trail of lust running down his spine. Ren smiled, an empty gesture.

“Yeah, wouldn’t want you to assume anything, now would we? That’s why you left, if I’m remembering right.”

Hux stared at him, horrified. The reason why this had gone from working so beautifully to being the worst decision of Hux’s life was summed up in a sentence. An unfeeling, flippant sentence. What hurt the most, though, was not that Ren had mentioned it; it was the fact that Ren was watching Hux as if it were a game. Somewhere in the background, Hux could hear cold rain starting, the kind that hushed everything in its fine shower and drained the color from the world. Ren glanced out the window, and without the intense gaze on him Hux could finally speak.

“Yes,” Hux whispered. “I assumed you loved me. I was wrong.”

His voice was caught behind his tongue, and he swallowed hard. As if waking from a dream, Ren brought his dark eyes back to Hux’s with an almost horrified expression. It was as if he had expected a fight, and only just now realized that he could kick as much as he wanted and Hux would not return the blows. Regret drew his brows together, and his lips twitched. As much as he wanted to, Hux could not force himself to look away.

“I’m sorry,” Ren said slowly. “That was cruel of me, to bring it up like that.”

“It’s alright,” Hux said. It was what he deserved. He had earned no mercy here. He turned on the edge of the bed so that his back was away from his ex, and he wished he could turn his back on the memory of Ren breaking off all ties with him. The image surfaced despite him trying to hold its head under, its gasps dragging Hux deeper into his own mind.

Hux had been working at the local grocery store, saving up money. Ren had barely graduated by the skin of his teeth, and he had been doing things Hux knew he shouldn’t be. But they had been happy, or so Hux had thought. And then he’d come home--

“Ava said you’d been like this since Ing passed,” Ren said, his voice low and calm, “but I never thought I’d see it.”

“See what?”

“You. Like this.”

“Like what?” Hux asked, exasperated.

“In your head so much.”

“I’m not in my head.”

“Oh no?” Ren moved up, crawling across the bed to drape the blanket across Hux’s shoulders. “Then kiss me.” Hux whirled, meaning to throw Ren off of him, but found himself immobile with the man so close. “It’ll help keep you here, in the moment. I’ll let you do it. You can use me, don’t even think about it.”

Hux frowned, a memory of their first time together on the forefront of his mind. It had been in a pile of blankets in Ren’s pickup truck. It was messy, not that enjoyable; they’d gotten french fries after, and Ren had kissed the salt away from Hux’s lips and told him they would explore again when he was ready. Was this the same man who was sitting before him?

Numbness settled in once more. Hux could do it. It would provide an excellent distraction. Hux would be lying if he said Ren wasn’t tempting. He could use him until he was spent, and then leave the same way he had left four years ago.

No. He couldn’t. Hux felt sick simply at the thought of it. He was grateful to be feeling anything at all in the moment, so he clung to it, digging it deeper until it hurt. He’d left Ren once, and couldn’t stomach the idea of doing it again. Best to not get close again, so he wouldn't have to leave a second time. He shook his head at Ren, and the man before him smiled.

“You’re sure?”

Hux nodded, not trusting his voice.

“Figures. Guess you didn’t miss me, then, eh?” Ren said, almost to himself, as he sat back.

“If you think that, you’re a fucking idiot,” Hux shot. He waited for the confession to sink in, to bring them to a place of understanding. His every instinct was screaming at him to close the distance between them, to trace the lines he didn’t recognize on Ren’s face by his eyes. But the man before Hux watched him with a half-lidded glare, an unperturbed expression ghosting over his face.

“Guess I am, then.”

Hux shook his head.

“What the fuck happened to you?”

“I picked up the pieces, and I moved on,” Ren said cryptically, shrugging as he leaned away even further. He hadn’t even so much as cracked a frown at what Hux had said, at how close to tears Hux seemed. It was unnerving. The dark grey cotton of his sweatpants was pressing against Hux’s bare leg, and the familiarity of it made Hux look down for the first time since coming to.

“Did you… undress me?”

“Oh yes. And I loved every minute of it,” Ren said tonelessly. Hux felt his jaw clench, felt an ache in his teeth from how hard he bit back an angry admonishment. This was not his Kylo Ren. Not at all. The name aloud seemed like something else to bury, something else to ignore until the rain washed away the fresh dirt piled on top.

“Ben,” Hux said slowly, “Can I please borrow your phone? I’d like to call my sister and have her come pick me up.”

Ren’s lips twitched, then. Just a subtle thing, but he seemed to be getting ready to say something else to Hux and then thinking better of it. At war with himself. In the end, the man before Hux simply said, “Sure,” and tossed him his phone.


	3. Chapter 3

“What the fuck did you do to make Ben Solo owe you a favor?” Hux asked as soon as they were far away from the quarry. As they passed by the cemetery, the rain cascading into the fresh mound just outside of their vision, Hux forced himself to look down at his watch. It wasn’t even noon.

“I bailed him out of jail about a year ago,” Avalyn said, too tired to keep from being blunt.

“What?” Hux looked up at her, confusion creasing his face.

“Yeah. Bailed him out of jail. He got in with a bad crowd when his mom got sick, couldn’t keep up the business, so he was selling pills on the side to make ends meet.” Avalyn heaved a world-weary sigh as she drove up to the tudor house that was more fitting for a large family than a single divorcee. “I knew how much he meant to you, before you left. I couldn’t let him stay in jail when they arrested him.”

“Is his mother…?”

“She’s alive,” Ava said, turning the car off. They sat there, staring at the rainy windshield for a long while, letting the information sink in.

“She’s not around here, is she? Like in Asheville?”

“She’s getting treatment for her cancer in a very famous hospital in California. She should be home within a year, but until then, it’s just Ben. It’s just been Ben for a long while now.” Ava turned her head, leaning it back on the headrest so that it lolled slightly onto the chair. “Duke… why did y’all two break things off?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Everything always is,” Ava said, turning back to the windshield before them. She heaved a small laugh, a cough-like sound. “You know, I knew from the start that Trevor and I weren’t going to work out. Y’know?”

“Mmm,” Hux hummed, not having known this in the slightest.

“On our wedding day, I found his phone. I found the texts. I knew, then, what kind of a man he was. How disloyal. How disorganized. Sloppy, right? For me to be able to find them so easily?”

Hux watched her, amazed that a statement that should seem so innocuous could hold so much latent emotion. Avalyn sighed.

“I walked up to the altar hoping to change him. And I knew, in that moment, that we would never last. I’d be holding onto his fragments, wanting to put him back together again, and just,” she made a twisting motion with her hands, “cutting myself up in the process, forever and ever. ‘Til death do us part, y’know?”

“I know.”

“Is that why you and Ben didn’t stay together?” she asked. “For fear of cutting each other to shreds?”

“In a way, yeah,” Hux admitted. That was only half of the reason, though. He couldn’t voice the other to his sister, couldn’t tell her that he was the one who hadn’t been enough for Ren. He couldn’t tell her that it had been his fault, that it was all his fault. The only person he had ever admitted this to was gone now, lying under new earth that sucked greedily at the raindrops spattering his gravestone. Hux patted Avalyn’s shoulder and stepped out into the cold rain, ignoring her throat clear as he shut the door gently behind himself.

* * *

 

The next day, the siblings slept in. It was almost as if they were a part of a haunted house that hadn’t opened to the public yet. They kept waiting for someone to show up and be scared by their makeshift blanket-cloaks and black-rimmed eyes, but nobody came. The neighbors and other caring members of the community had filled the fridge and freezer positively to the brim, and it seemed like now that they were all satisfied the Huxes wouldn’t starve, the neighbors could stay away without feeling guilty.

Hux and Avalyn ate in silence in front of the television, chuckling at whatever was on, and it reminded Hux painfully of the times he had pretended to be sick as a child just to be able to stay home with her and watch movies.  The freedom he felt at being left alone coupled with the intense desire to be cared for. He resisted the urge to go sit on the couch directly next to his sister, and folded himself instead in blankets all the way across the living room on the recliner.

When Avalyn mentioned that she was going to pop over to their parents’, Hux burrowed deeper in his blanket pile.

“Are you going to be here when I get back?” Avalyn asked.

“Probably.”

“Want me to call someone?”

“If you’re going to call my ex again, I’d rather you didn’t,” Hux quipped. Ava sighed.

“I wasn’t going to tell you but… he’s been asking about you.”

“Who is? Our father?” Hux sat up in shock, turning a hopeful gaze to his sister in the doorway to the kitchen. She winced, as if she never should have said anything.

“No. I meant Ben.”

“Ah.” Hux settled back into his recliner, feeling like a child denied. Avalyn waited, paused there indefinitely, and Hux sighed. “So what did he say?” Hux tacked on, eager to get her to leave already if she was going to go.

“He said he wants to drop by. Come see how you’re doing.”

“Fine. Let him,” Hux said before he could stop himself. “He can see how disgusting I look.”

“That’s the spirit,” Ava said, her voice a forceful cheery that made Hux regret having griped. Before he could apologize, she was gone with only a jingle of her car keys as a goodbye. Hux was left there, in the cold living room of an empty, bled-dry house. Tears came, and he struggled with pushing them back. He hadn’t cried since he’d gotten to the hospital room, when he’d seen Ingram all white and empty. It was a battle of willpower. He knew he would feel better, probably sleep without dreaming if he could just cry it out. But he didn’t want it. He didn’t want to feel clean like this, didn’t deserve to be free just yet. He sat there, sniffling, suffering, staring at the black screen of the television for what felt like an eternity.

The sound of a car in the driveway jolted him back to reality. Hux glanced at the clock above the television, scoffed at it having only been an hour since Ava had left. Was she already done with their parents? He blinked hard, accidentally sending a few small tears streaking down his cheeks. It didn't count, he told himself, it wasn't catharsis if he didn't want succumb. He got up, turning the television on to pretend like he had not been lost in his head as so many accused him of being lately. It was too loud, the cackling laugh track of the sitcom grating at his very core. The doorbell rang, and Hux caught his feet in getting up off the couch and clattered to the hardwood.

“Just a minute,” he called, but then he heard the door open with a key. “What’d you forget, Bo?” Hux called to his sister, pausing while trying to untangle himself from the blanket burrito he found himself in the center of. Heavy boots clattered to the corner, and for a minute Hux wondered what Ava had worn out that day. He stared at the doorway to the kitchen, and from his vantage point on the floor an upside-down Ren stalked into view. “Oh.”

“Hello to you too,” Ren said, not amused. He made his way over to the living room and Hux squirmed in the knot of fabric. “Practicing being a slug, are we?”

“If anything, I’m a caterpillar,” Hux said, pulling the blankets up and resigning himself to his fate on the floor. “I’m also kind of stuck.”

“You know, my mom used to wrap our cat up this way when we wanted to clip his nails without him putting up a fuss,” Ren smirked.

“If you bring a pair of scissors anywhere near me, I’ll bite your knees off,” Hux warned. Ren laughed, the sound surprising Hux into flushing brightly. Ren stepped over him to sit on the couch Ava had lain on only a bit ago. He grabbed up the remote from Hux’s blanket burrito before he went to flop onto the burgundy loveseat, throwing his limbs across it in such a comfortable gesture that Hux felt like he was back in high school.

“You tell me when you’re hungry, and I’ll come over there and unwrap you,” Ren chuckled.

“Is that supposed to be another fucked-up invitation?" Hux mumbled.

"Excuse me?"

"Like what you asked me yesterday." Hux glanced up, having misunderstood what he thought had been a double entendre. Ren looked appalled, frowning at the television.

"No. It's not like that."

"Then... I could eat,” Hux said, actually feeling the first hint of an appetite for the first time in days. He wanted something, but he wasn’t sure what. Ren rolled his eyes, shifting back to normal again in an instant.

“I just sat down. You’re going to have to wait now, at least until this episode of Divorce Court is over.”

“I fucking hate this show, R- Ben.”

“It’s okay, Hux,” he answered. For a minute, Hux huffed, thinking that he was referencing the show. But then when Hux glanced over, when he saw how Ren’s mouth was a tight line as if to keep it from giving anything away, Hux realized that he was talking about the name.

“So you’re going to respond to Kylo Ren again?”

“If it’s from you.”

“Who else would it be from?”

“I dunno. Who all did you tell about it?”

“Nobody. It was ours,” Hux said, frowning with disdain. Just like his nickname with his sister was sacred to him, so too was the one he had for Ren. In high school, they’d decided together. First names were out, they were something to shed like old skin. Their preferred names were the last clean things of theirs that he could keep. Hux realized Ren was staring at him, and blinked hard. “Fuck. I did it again.”

“Yeah. Come out here, join the rest of us in the real world. It’s nice outside your head.”

“Alright, I get it,” Hux groaned. He didn’t mean to keep slipping away, keep looking backwards. It was totally unlike him, feeling chased by his own mind. He would stop if he could, if he knew how. But then again, who was he to deny what his mind obviously wanted to do in order to heal?

“You gotta stay in the moment,” Ren said, turning back to Divorce Court. “It helps.”

“Maybe for someone like you,” Hux snapped.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ren asked, his voice taunting and tired.

“Your moods change more often than the fucking weather ‘round here,” Hux quipped.

“‘Round here, eh?” Ren asked, leaning forward towards the floor. “There’s that accent I remember. You’ve been hiding it,” he noted.

“I got rid of it as best I could,” Hux confirmed. “It sticks on some words. Comes out some other times.”

“Like when?”

“Like when I’m drunk or angry,” Hux shrugged, his blankets moving about his shoulders like a second skin. “Or around you.”

“Why me?”

“Because you make me feel drunk and angry, I guess,” Hux laughed darkly. He snuggled further into the blankets, craning his neck to see the judge laying out the verdict better. He was startled to find Ren on the floor when he glanced back, crawling towards him like a predator on the prowl. “The fuck are you doing?” he demanded, drawing back instinctively.

“You’re pretty helpless like this,” Ren said. He paused, tilting his head a bit. His eyes were dark, but warm; they reminded Hux of the scarves he wore in winter, the thick black ones that smelled of spice and snow. “Let’s be honest, though. You’re pretty no matter what situation you’re in.”

“Stop trying to flirt with me,” Hux said, turning his body so that he was facing in towards the foot of the recliner. This way, at least Ren couldn’t see how deeply affected he was. He hated this and loved it, wanted more and wanted less. What the fuck was he supposed to do here? Give in? He knew where that would leave him. In this moment, he was surrounded by temptation. When he gave in, Ren would move Hux’s soul around inside of him in the best way. And when he pulled away, there would be an empty space there hadn’t been before, Ren’s mark left behind.

Hux couldn’t handle anymore emptiness.

“I mean it,” Hux said tonelessly, “Leave me alone.”

“I can’t,” Ren said softly, and Hux realized that he was curling up to spoon Hux softly from behind. He stretched out, their lengths matching up almost perfectly. Hux automatically curled to better fit his back against Ren’s chest. Ren slid one hand under Hux’s neck, which he lifted without Ren having to say a word. The other arm pulled Hux close against Ren’s chest, settling over the layers of blankets to where he knew Hux’s heartbeat resided somewhere deep within. “I don’t even want to try.”

“You left before,” Hux whispered. “It’s not fair of you to do this to me now. For you to come back to me now.”

“Why not?”

“Because I would have stayed if you hadn’t left me first.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Ren asked harshly against his ear. Hux gasped when Ren yanked him harder back against his chest, pressing the breath out of him in a tight embrace.

“Careful, Ren,” Hux murmured. He couldn’t keep resisting, and Ren’s confession had pushed him that much closer to the edge of giving in. As if he hadn’t heard him, Kylo nuzzled against the soft spot by Hux’s ear. Hux moaned aloud, a plaintive noise that cut the silence of the drafty house, a noise that forced Ren’s lips to curl into a smile.

“I’m content like this,” Ren whispered. Hux relaxed, just barely, just in time for Ren to add, “For now.”

“If you stay like this, I’m going to fall asleep.”

“That’s fine.”

“Your arm’s going to suffer,” Hux warned, slamming his head gently into Ren’s bicep.

“I think I can take some punishment every now and again,” Ren answered. He splayed his fingers over the blanket and Hux could have sworn that he knew how the princess and the pea had worked; he could’ve sworn he felt Kylo’s fingers directly on his chest, pressing through all of the fabric and fluff between them to finally join skin against skin.

Hux was out cold before he knew it, drifting into the kind of exhausted, grief-addled sleep that comes abruptly and deeply and leaves a trail of drool behind in its wake. Hux couldn’t feel it, but Kylo began to smooth his hair back away from his face when he knew for sure the redhead was not going to flinch away. It was a tender gesture, a quiet one.

Ren’s eyes were haunted, half-lidded, and in this moment he was less a predator and more prey himself. It was a gesture from another time, meant to soothe another Hux long-gone. It seemed to come instinctively to Ren now, as if he knew it would plunge Hux deeper into the rest he so desperately needed. Pressing a kiss to Hux’s part, Ren watched as blonde eyelashes fluttered. Tears came that Ren swiped away with clumsy fingers on freckled cheeks; he stayed quiet, focused on his mission of steady comfort, afraid to wake the man in his arms for fear of him being ashamed at the tears he couldn’t help.

Hux dreamed of misty rain, never knowing that Ren was kissing peace into him as he slept.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *** very slight dubcon, explained in the end notes ***

When Hux woke up, the blankets were unfolded about him as if he had molted during the last hour. He stirred groggily, his eyes not wanting to open up, his limbs not wanting to move. He could smell food cooking, though, more food from the seemingly unlimited freezer of pity-meals. The idea of it curdled his stomach, but the actual aroma itself was complex and pleasant. He moved to his knees, rolling over so that he could get up slowly. Was this how toddlers felt when they woke up from their daily naps? Hungover and heavy? Unable to stand upright without help from someone larger? No wonder they cried constantly. Hux kept one blanket around his shoulders, shuffling slowly into the kitchen where he could hear a pan hissing.

“Hey,” Ren smiled over at him through the warm glow of the light overhead of the stove.

“What time is it?”

“Lunchtime, obviously.” Ren flipped the sandwich in the pan, letting it land perfectly on its opposite side so that it could toast thoroughly. “Soup’s in the microwave.”

“Didn’t know you were such a gourmet,” Hux said, moving over to the table and shedding his blanket over the back of one of the four chairs. He wondered blankly for a minute if Avalyn ever ate in here. The picture of his sister, lonely at her table, threatened to bring him to his knees. He pushed it far away and moved to the microwave, tapping the ceramic side of the bowl with the fingertips of his index and middle finger before grabbing it. It was warm, but not too hot. He glanced down, saw that it was just microwaved tomato soup from a can. Absurdly, he found himself smiling at that. It was better, somehow, to have this simple meal. He knew that Ren had expended a certain amount of effort on this, but it wasn’t too much. It was perfect. He moved over to the chair with the blanket and sat down before realizing he didn’t get a spoon for himself.

“Stay,” Ren said when Hux went to stand up and grab one. Hux lowered himself with a squint directed at the brunette in the kitchen, too tired to be fully annoyed.

“Are you eating too?”

“Yeah, of course,” Ren answered, as if Hux was an idiot. “I’m about to microwave mine.”

“Did you just cook me what you wanted to eat?” Hux asked, a smile on the edge of his lips. Ren nodded, humming as he moved past Hux and placed two sandwiches on the table. Hux examined them while Ren beeped something into the microwave. The man moved back behind him, sucking on his knuckle where he must have slopped some soup out of the edge of the bowl in his eagerness to get it heated.

“It’s like a BLT grilled cheese, with some spinach instead of lettuce.” Ren moved to the silverware drawer, very obviously comfortable in Avalyn’s house, and brought back two forks. Hux found himself wondering how much these two hung around each other in his absence. The thought did nothing for his already weak appetite.

“BST doesn’t sound very appealing.”

“Eat before it gets cold,” Ren ordered, setting a spoon by Hux’s hand. Was it just Hux’s imagination, or did Ren’s fingers trace a cool line over the back of his hand as they passed? The microwave beeping distracted him from the thought, so Hux just picked up the spoon and began to stir his soup.

They ate in comfortable silence for a bit, Ren dipping his sandwich into the tomato soup and mercifully keeping his gaze away from Hux’s. Hux felt salt and sleep in the corner of his eyes, wondered if Ren had napped with him too. Every question he had seemed less important than the one at the forefront of his mind, however. He knew he shouldn’t blurt it, that he should keep them comfortable. He chewed, swallowed, and Ren broke the silence.

“You’re wondering if Avalyn and I are close, aren’t you?” Ren asked. Hux almost dropped his sandwich into his soup.

“Well,” he sighed, setting his half-eaten grilled cheese back onto the shared plate between them. “I guess I am, yes.”

“We’re not really. Not in the way you and her are close, at least. She did me a big favor, I think because of… what I used to be to you. So in a way, it was a favor to you, in her mind.” Ren tilted his head, his mouth twitching. “But I appreciated it nonetheless. When Trevor and her ended, I figured it must be hard on her. Such a big house. No kids. No husband.”

Hux stared into the creamy red of his soup, tried not to imagine this conversation leading up to how Ren had fallen in love with his sister. He didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to be having this conversation.

“I come by to help her around the house, but in a way, I’m doing the same thing as she did.”

“And what’s that?” Hux asked curtly, looking back up at the man before him. Ren bit his lip, staring off at the clock on the side of the kitchen cabinets.

“I’m doing her favors because you love her, and you wouldn’t want her to be lonely.” Ren paused, as if that phrasing bothered him. “What I mean to say is, if I have any love left for you, I can show it by being good to her.” He turned his eyes back to Hux’s, searching. “Does that make sense?”

“It does,” Hux said, ice gripping his chest. He swallowed hard. “Were you… did you ever talk to my brother like this? Did you see him often?”

“Ingram and I talked, but it was more difficult than it was with Avalyn,” Ren said softly. “If he needed anything, I was there and I was nice, sure. But…”

“He looked too much like me, didn’t he?” Hux murmured.

“He looked exactly like you, but softer,” Ren nodded. “He had this way of speaking, of caring for others. He took so much in, y’know?”

“For sure,” Hux stirred his soup absently, watching the film spreading on top as it chilled. “Ingram felt responsible for everything. He wanted to change it all.”

“Your distance saved you,” Ren said. Hux didn’t know if it was to himself or not, until he added, “You could escape, because you didn’t let yourself feel.”

“I felt it all,” Hux said, his spoon making a barely audible clink against the ceramic bowl as he set it down. “I just moved past it as quickly as I could.”

“Ingram tended to dwell, didn’t he?” Ren said with a smile. “You and Avalyn, you seemed to know how to lock out your father. But Ing…”

“He wanted to change him,” Hux nodded. It felt painful, but good, to be talking about his brother with someone who had known him. Who had known all of him. Ren didn’t look close to tears, or close to breaking. He was remembering Ingram vividly, and honestly. Hux sighed deeply. “Ing thought Father loved me.”

“Ingram loved you, so he was sure everyone else did too,” Ren smiled, and then broke into a laugh. “This is so random but, do you remember that time when he came home with a broken arm?”

“Oh God, yes,” Hux leaned back in his chair. “I haven’t thought of that in so long. What the fuck did he do again? Tripped rolling down a hill?”

“He was out with Davis Jameson, my neighbor, and that kid dared Ing to roll headfirst down this hill right by the Presbyterian church, right? And Ingram did it, but there was this patch of concrete, some kind of curb for wiring, and he knocked his arm straight into it.”

“That’s right! Oh man, I was supposed to be watching him that day.”

“What were you doing instead?”

“I might have been at the diner nearby with some friends,” Hux confessed. “We said we were studying, but really Poe Dameron and I wanted to check out this new waiter.”

“You horndog,” Ren laughed.

“It was Dameron’s idea,” Hux protested, chuckling. “I never even knew that Ingram had broken his arm, he came home and was just babying it so I thought maybe he had a swollen mosquito bite that hurt or something. I asked him what was wrong, and he was like ‘Oh nothin’ so I dropped it.”

“And then he went out the next day, with me, Davis, you, and Poe, and-”

“He slipped off his scooter and fell  _ right _ on his broken arm! Oh my god, the poor kid,” Hux laughed. “He just kept apologizing to me, do you remember?”

“I do! He must have been in shock. I don’t even think you knew his arm was broken!”

“I knew when I tried to touch it and he screeched like a banshee,” Hux grinned, shaking his head at the memory. The smile faded from his lips. “We took him to the ER immediately. They fixed it without him needing surgery, luckily. Father came out of the hospital and yanked me up so hard my shoulder almost popped out of the socket,” Hux confessed. That last part, he hadn't meant to say it out loud, but there it was.

“Oh you’re kidding me,” Ren sneered as he continued wolfing down his soup. “That man’s ridiculous. What, he thought you broke Ing’s arm?”

“I don’t know. He was talking about Ingram’s football career, but Ing was what, only like nine right? He wasn’t playing football yet.”

“Your father always expected him to, I guess.”

“I guess,” Hux repeated as an answer. He licked his lips, tasted a trace of acidic tomato at the corner of his mouth. He swallowed hard. “He expected me to do a lot of things too.”

Ren paused, waiting. Hux realized he wasn’t going to speak until Hux elaborated.

“So,” Hux sighed. “You know how he was a medic in the Army, right?” Hux glanced up to see Ren nod. “He told me to go into the military. When I was little, my Halloween costumes were all military camouflage and shit.”

“I always thought that was cute,” Ren said sardonically. Hux twisted his mouth at the man across the table, shaking his head.

“It was indoctrination is what it was. I got big into the idea of the military for a bit, but then…” Hux paused. “I saw this film about surgeons. It looked difficult but the way they put together broken people again… I was like, no. This is what I need to be doing, not the military. I could be the person who like, digs a brain tumor out of a woman’s head. That’s what I want. So, I talked to my father, got permission,” Hux scoffed at this phrase, “to not join the military. So long as I got into university for pre-med, he’d pay for school.”

“Lord knows he could have afforded it,” Ren nodded. Hux glanced over, not sure why he suddenly felt like his voice was too small, too insignificant. The way Ren was looking at him, it reminded him of watching clouds forming a storm on the horizon. He knew he should stop, but his words kept coming, on the edge of his mind and barely being filtered.

“I ran away before that. Because I didn’t want to even be a surgeon anymore. You remember?”

“I remember,” Ren replied. His voice was soft and soothing. “You had just asked me out the month before, and I’d said yes. You running off kind of fucked up our first date.”

“I’m so sorry. I couldn’t afford to take you out to eat.”

“I’m just messing with you,” Ren chuckled, and Hux felt that familiar ache in his chest. It was as if he were back in high school again, watching Ren from across the courtyard as he spoke, in awe of the loose confidence in his deep voice. Once more, he felt slightly disdainful and envious at the same time of Ren being able to carry an obnoxious acoustic guitar to class, serenading their teachers with ease.

"Do you remember it?" Hux asked, his voice small.

“Of course. We drove out to the cemetery by the middle school, and you laid out in the back of my truck with me. We ate chicken nuggets, which is still my favorite meal to this day,” Ren set his spoon down in his soup while Hux forced a laugh. He looked up at the man across from him, earnest and open. Ren's mouth twisted up at one corner, rueful. “We watched the stars. Made out a little. Got a bit hot and bothered and had to go home blushing and hard. Not a bad first date, overall. I’d say it made me want you more.”

“You and I were kinda wrapped up in each other, huh?”

“We were,” Ren said fondly, smiling at Hux over his soup. Hux shook his head, swallowing hard.

“Ingram ever ask you about us?”

“About you and him?”

“No, Ren, about me and you.  _ Us _ .”

“I … don’t really remember.” Ren paused. “Why do you ask?”

“Because he knew,” Hux shrugged. "So maybe he asked about it."

"I don't remember," Ren repeated lamely. That was the end of it.

Hux and Ren ate in silence while he gathered his thoughts, trying to decide what he should and shouldn’t say. After only a few mouthfuls, Hux set his spoon down. He cleared his throat and continued. “Before I left, I told Ingram everything. I told him about how I didn’t want to be a doctor, I wanted to be an architect. I told him how I didn’t want to live in North Carolina, I wanted to move further north. Told him how I didn’t want to leave, because of how I felt about you.” Ren seemed taken aback by this confession. It had never come up between them. Hux pressed on, the poison so close that he had to drain it out now. “I told him I loved you, and I was going to run away until I could bring you with me out of Allenstand. Away from your mom, away from my dad. We’d escape, you know?” Hux paused, a difficult lump forming in his throat. “I couldn’t visit Ingram and Avalyn, Father made sure of that, but when I came back into town I could see you. And that was enough, for a while. I got myself a place on the edge of town, started working at a grocery store, I had money. I had you. I had my plans.”

“Hux.”

“And then one day, I go to visit you, and you’re…” Hux swallowed. Up until now, they had never voiced aloud what happened. They’d screamed, they’d broken up, two young kids thrown together in an impossibly poor town that had never had a hope of staying together despite Hux’s elaborately laid-out strategems. Staring at him now, at the boy who’d held his hand as they skipped first and second period together to go get breakfast at the Waffle House, Hux felt renewed bitterness. It was as if the betrayal had only just happened. He couldn't say it out loud, even now.

“You left, just after that, I remember,” Ren whispered. He looked close to tears, the traitor. As if he had any right to cry, as if he had any right to regret what he had done. Hux felt his face wipe clean of all emotion.

“I did. And I never came back.”

“Until now.”

“Until now,” Hux agreed. He wanted to leave again. He hated this sense of belonging paired with an impending sense of watching himself from a window elsewhere on the outside of his mind.

“How long will you stay?” Ren asked, hope poorly concealed in his voice. Hux grit his teeth.

“As long as Avalyn needs.” Hux sniffed sharply. “She said something about going over to start cleaning Ingram’s room today. I assume she’ll be bringing stuff back for us to look through together.”

“Do you want me to head out before she gets back?”

Hux flicked his gaze back to Ren’s, trying to see if there was a trap in that question. He looked like he was so much younger than twenty-four, pouting like that. Hux wanted to send him away, to tell him to fuck off, but something clawed at him. A feeling of need. He shook his head.

“Stay.” He picked up his spoon and resumed eating, just to fill his stomach a bit. He would never have the energy to deal with the emotions that his sister would most likely be bringing back into the house if he didn’t eat. He tried to ignore Ren’s stare as he spooned tomato acid into his mouth.

“Hux, can I say something?”

“If you must,” Hux answered after swallowing.

“I never wanted to hurt you,” Ren said. “It wasn’t-”

“No, see,” Hux dropped his spoon, splashing some soup onto the table between them. He shook his head, trying to find the best words to unleash into Ren’s ears. “You do not get to say things like _that_ to me. Y’hear me? You just don’t.”

“I need you to know the truth!”

“I walked in on you getting choke-fucked, Kylo,” Hux spat, cutting off his ex at the knees, “by some guy who worked at the hardware store. Who must have been at least ten years older than you.” Ren stared at his hands, anger on his face barely contained in a lip curl. Hux felt the ice in his chest dissipating across his entire body, chilling his limbs. He felt close to passing out, but he threw out the words anyway as if they could anchor him to the chair. “Do you know how fucked up it was?! To see that, but then to have you tell me that was what you wanted?”

“Just-”

“You told me it was over between us. You told me that you didn’t care about me and hadn’t for a long time. So you know, if you didn’t want to hurt me you could have broken up with me like a normal fucking human being, instead of planning for me to come home and catch you with someone who was old enough to be your dad!” Hux stood abruptly, dragging his hands on the underside of the table so that it shook as he left. “You know, maybe you should actually leave now that I think about it,” he said, his voice raised and angry. “I can’t be calm around you.”

“Just let me talk, please,” Ren begged.

Hux almost caved. He had to look away in order to steady his voice, to break the shimmering stare Ren had affixed him with in order to speak.

“You don’t deserve to."

"Then talk to me!"

"No. I need you to not be here when Ava brings back what’s left of Ingram.”

Ren paused as if Hux had physically hit him.

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do.”

“That’s not fair,” Ren snapped, his lips quivering as if he were on the verge of tears. “I was here, Hux, when he needed to get away-”

“I don’t want to hear it!” Hux shouted, dragging his hands through his hair.

“No, you fucking need to! Ingram hated being here, hated to bother you, you know how he was! He loved you, so much, that he would come over just to ask me about you. He would come over to my place so your fucking father wouldn’t hear him cry, so he could hear your voice if you happened to call. He came over to me because we both loved you, you fucking idiot!”

“Did you sleep with him, then?” Hux demanded, rage almost blinding him as Ren rose to his feet and moved from the table that was keeping him barricaded away from Hux. “Did you fuck him too? Was it easier to love a softer version of me, instead of loving me?”

“I never touched him,” Ren said, his voice raising. “Forget for a minute that he was your brother, he was also five fucking years younger than me. He was twelve years old when you left, Hux, _listen_ to yourself!”

“I wouldn’t put it past someone like you,” Hux snapped.

“You don’t mean that!” Ren shouted, his lip quivering.

“Oh yes I do!” Hux grit his teeth, pushing Ren with both hands to move him backwards. “You ended us.”

“I had to.”

“You didn’t _have_ to do anything!” Hux shouted. “Your mother never cared aout us, and I had no ties to anyone. We had each other! It should have been enough! So tell me, was I just not soft enough, or not rough enough? Because it seems like you’re a bit confused on that too.”

Ren stared at him, chest heaving, eyes ablaze. But he said nothing.

“You knew Ingram," Hux stated, his volume dropping now. It seemed to scare Ren more than the shouting had. "He’s the closest version of a tender Hux you’ll ever fucking get. So tell me, did you love that about him?”

“No. Not how I loved you,” Ren answered, his words venomous.

“You don’t get to say that to me,” Hux laughed. “You were fucking people behind my back, people who would treat you like dirt sooner’n look twice at you. Forgive me,” Hux snarled sarcastically, “for being so kind, so careful with you. If you didn’t love my brother for his softness, maybe you wished I could've been rougher, huh?”

Ren stared at him, his jaw dropping open at the accusation. Hux laughed again, cruel, sounding like someone he hated.

“Come here, then," Hux ordered. "I’ll show you how much I’ve changed because of you.”

He was upon Ren in an instant, backing him into the wall with enough force to send a loud bang through the empty house. Hux found Ren’s lips, kissing him with teeth and fang, drawing forth growls from the man’s chest. He slammed Ren’s shoulders back, fought off Ren’s hands as he tried to free himself from Hux’s onslaught.

His nails were at Ren’s skin, his knuckles in his hair, and he was tearing Ren apart as much as he was kissing him. Hux felt Ren’s head turning, and he forced it back with a sharp grab of his hand. Ren’s fists were at his shoulders, punching him, pushing him, but every second they broke away Hux returned. He gentled the assault, his own lips bruised and sore, and whispered, “Is this what you wanted? For me to hate-fuck you? You offered it to me the other day, told me to fuck you until I healed. To use you. Were you being sarcastic, or did you really want me to?”

“I don’t know!” Ren cried, his struggles growing weak. He was breaking down. Hux ground his hips into his, bitterness coursing through his blood like bleach.

“You didn’t want me when I loved you. Will you want me if I hate you?” Hux whispered. He kissed Kylo again. It was soft, sad. He realized that his cheeks were wet, and the shock of the sensation made him pull away.

He stared at the man before him, chest heaving, heart beating erratic and helpless in his chest.

“Are you crying?” Hux asked, suddenly terrified of himself.

“No,” Ren said, his voice quiet but firm. Hux’s gaze flicked over Ren’s features, over his expression of agony. He wasn’t. His cheeks were dry, even though he looked close to tears. Hux brought his hands up to his own face, touched his own chin with trembling fingertips. Wet. He blinked, sending more tears trailing down his own cheeks.

Hux took a shaky step back, his knees weak. He tried to say something, but for the first time since returning to his childhood home he took a good, long look at his ex.

Kylo’s hair was, in fact, streaked with gray. The colorless hairs glinted like starlight, like a reminder of how stressed Kylo must have been all alone. Kylo’s eyes were bright, wide, but not angry. He looked, actually, like he felt he deserved the attack. Was this how Hux looked the other day, when Ren had apologized for his cruelty?

Ren’s shirt was hanging lopsided, its collar open and stretched from the way Hux had clawed at his chest just a second ago. His lips were swollen and parted, his neck red with scrape-marks. His hands were clenched at his side, as if he were fighting the urge to move forward and bring Hux back to him. Hux went to speak, but all that came out was a shaky sob.

“Fuck,” Hux whispered, sinking to the kitchen floor.

For once, Kylo said nothing. He knelt beside Hux as he cried, his hands dragging across Hux’s back as the redhead curled forward and sobbed into his hands, but Hux barely noticed.

The last time he had cried like this has been when he was twelve years old, when his dog had died. His father had buried the small terrier in the backyard, no pretense or sadness. When Hux had cried as they threw dirt on the plastic trash bag, his father had shoved him toward the house and told him to go to his room without supper.

Locked away there, Hux had lost it, sitting in his room with the radio on so that nobody else would hear him grieve. Ingram had heard, though, or maybe Ingram had just known. He’d snuck in, even when Hux had told him to go away, and he had soothed Hux just like how Ren was soothing him now. Ingram had just been a baby around then, not even six yet. He had been so kind, even at five years old. Hux had never been like that, could not remember a time where he wasn’t sharpness and edges and cold impartiality.

“I am so sorry,” Hux wept now, whispering it to his brother and to his ex-boyfriend and to his sister. “For everything. For me."

"Shh," Ren hushed, his hand warm between Hux's shoulder blades.

"I never should have left,” Hux whispered, and it was like he'd been purged. The tears came freely, his chest aching from the enormity of it.

Ren pulled him forward into his lap, and Hux let him. Sitting there, cross-legged on the floor, breathing in deeply the smell of Ren’s woodstove-smoked flannel and rocking gently with him, Hux cried until he felt close to the point of exhaustion. There was no need to talk. The clouds outside had kept their house in an eternal gray fog, one that was timeless and tiring. Hux had no idea how long he cried for, didn’t really want to know. He let it out until his breaths returned to normal from their sobbing hiccups, until he felt dehydrated and completely empty. Only after his breathing was mostly even did Ren stand up, helping Hux to his feet. Together, they moved upstairs to the master bedroom.

Once inside, Ren closed and locked the door. He sat Hux on the edge of the bed, then moved to the adjoining master bathroom and turned on the tap in the tub. The white rush of water in the tub covered up the silence between them, the soft glow of the small lightbulbs that lined the two-person sink casted warm butter-yellow into their world after hours of nothing but gray. Ren came back in and knelt before Hux, slipping off his socks one by one and throwing them into the hamper. He moved up to Hux’s torso, pulling off his shirt. Hux obliged, raising his arms up to make it easier.

Vulnerable, weak, Hux let out a shuddering breath when Ren pulled him to his chest to help him stand up. He undid Hux’s belt, pulling his pants and underwear to the floor. When Hux was naked, shivering before him, Ren began to strip too. He kicked off his jeans, his eyes calm. Hux reached up with shaky hands as Ren’s hair fell forward when he shed his flannel and took off his undershirt. His hair was so long now, curling into gentle waves. Hux tucked it behind Ren’s ear reverently, calmly. Ren leaned into his palm, closing his eyes as the breath of his sigh played on Hux’s pulse in his wrist. Ren turned and brushed a small kiss against his hand, holding it there with his own fingers. Hux felt overwhelmed with regret, and as if he could sense it Ren pulled them both naked to the bath.

Hux sat on the edge while Ren found their towels, big blue fluffy ones that he brought out from the cabinet. Hux saw two sets in there. One of them was from him, a housewarming present, back when Avalyn had talked about children. This set, thankfully, was one that Ava had chosen for herself. It brought back no memories. It was just a set of towels. Hux set them on the floor by the sink, then watched as Ren traced his fingers through the water, adjusted the temperature, and then turned it off.

Wordlessly, he helped Hux step into the tub. It was hot, but not unbearable. Hux sank in slowly, watched as his pale skin grew pink in the heat. Ren climbed in once Hux was situated, moving behind him and bringing Hux back to lie against his chest like a pillow. Hux closed his eyes, his vulnerability matching Ren’s in this moment. Ren moved through the water, dragging a measuring cup through it to pour over Hux’s hair. Avalyn must have had it there for just this purpose, resting by the loofah and various soaps.

The sensation of Ren pouring hot water over his head reminded Hux absurdly of being baptised. He arched his back a bit to allow his neck to crane further, to allow the water to drag his red tresses away from his face. Ren smoothed cup after cup over Hux’s hair until it was soaked through, and then he took a shampoo bottle from the edge of the tub.

Meticulously, with small movements, Ren began to wash Hux’s hair. He put a dime of shampoo into his palm, then worked it over Hux’s scalp in a massage until the lather had covered his head. Ren’s nails were just long enough to scratch satisfyingly against his skin, and the massage he was giving Hux seemed to be reaching deep into the dark places inside himself to pull away the knots. After a long moment, Ren rinsed his hands in the tub and dragged water in the cup to rinse the suds away. Hux assumed he would relax after that, but Ren pushed him up until Hux was sitting forward.

He was tempted to break the spell, to ask what Ren was doing, but instead Hux just wiped traces of water from his face in silence. He moaned when he felt a soapy loofah massaging his back. Ren’s fingers dragged over his bones, kneading the tension away. The small of his back, barely submerged in the steaming water between them, was subjected to two firm thumbs drawing lines of pain away from his hips. Hux stifled a groan, flinching at the momentary ache that was necessary to relieve the tension. With each touch of Ren’s fingers, Hux felt lighter. With each grip of his fist, Hux felt centered. By the time Ren was pouring hot water over his back to rinse it clean, Hux was almost asleep. He went to turn, to thank the man, but didn’t get the chance. Ren pulled him firmly against his chest and laid them down in the soapy water, their knees and shoulders the only things not submerged. The heat was soothing, as was the feeling of Ren’s skin against his. They lay in comfortable silence, the occasional repositioning of hips or arms sending small splashes of water against the porcelain echoing through the room.

When the water cooled, they got up and sought shelter in the plush terrycloth towels Ren had brought out. Hux half expected Ren to reach over with his own towel and fluff Hux’s hair dry, but he didn’t. He moved into the master bedroom and left Hux alone with the long mirror stretching across two sinks. Hux avoided his own gaze, staring instead at his bones and muscles, the trail of red hair down his stomach. He ruffled his hair semi-dry, then wrapped the towel around his waist before walking out into the cool air of the bedroom to follow his ex.

On the bed, Ren was setting out clothes. He was still naked himself, unashamed with his towel so low it might as well have not even been on his hips in the first place.

“You can, of course, wear whatever you like,” Ren said softly, his voice low and husky. Hux stared at the shirt and jeans before him. A white band tshirt from long ago, it used to belong to Ren. He’d given it to Hux before they’d broken up. Hux had left it here, with Ava, when he’d moved. Hux glanced up, wondering if Ren recognized it. Ren shrugged. “I just found it in the clean clothes hamper, I assumed it was yours,” Ren whispered.

“It is,” Hux said decidedly. He walked over, pulling on the clean set of boxers Ren had placed beside a set of black sweatpants. Dropping his towel, he fluffed his hair one last time and then pulled the white band tshirt on over his head. Ren started to dress too, pulling back on the clothes he’d shed in order to bathe alongside Hux. When they were both decent, Ren moved as if he were going to go back downstairs. “Wait.” Hux reached for him, his fingers catching on Ren’s shirtsleeve.

“What’s up?”

“Come here. Sit on the bed.” Hux grabbed a small plastic bag from the dresser, then moved to clear some of the clean laundry he’d meant to fold. He pushed it onto the floor so that he could kneel behind where Ren had sat dutifully on the edge of the bed. Hux looked up over Ren’s shoulder to the dresser in front of them. It held a large vanity mirror lined with shelves and beautiful wooden filigree. Hux caught Ren’s eyes in the mirror, saw the hesitation there, and had to stifle intense regret. Instead of apologizing, he set the tiny bag by his knee and moved closer to Ren’s back. He dragged his fingers through black tresses, combing them back away from Ren’s face.

Hux mimicked what had felt good to him, traced the same lines Ren had drawn on him in the bath. When he chanced a look up at the mirror, he noted with satisfaction that Ren’s eyes were closed and his mouth was parted in pleasure. Hux began in the middle, taking three thick strands of hair, and slowly braided Kylo’s hair back. It was long enough to hold itself together loosely, and when Hux got to Ren’s nape he held the finished braid in one hand while he opened the plastic bag with his teeth. In it, there were several tiny black rubber bands, ones he’d seen his sister using to tie her hair up the past few days. He used it to secure the braid in Ren’s hair, then started on another.

By the time he had finished, Ren had three loose braids holding his hair away from his face. Curls fell free from them, his layers too short by his neck to be contained as easily, but the effect was charming. It looked deliberate. Ren opened his eyes as Hux closed the bag up and gave a small laugh.

“Thank you,” Ren said with a smile, and Hux watched him admire himself in the mirror. He thought about throwing himself against Ren’s back, about kissing his neck, about nuzzling into his shoulders. But he didn’t deserve to, and he knew that they both realized it. Now was not the time. Hux squeezed his ex’s shoulder, making eye contact with Ren’s reflection. The warmth there stunned Hux, as it always seemed to. He softened, offering a weak smile to the mirror.

“Anytime.”

* * *

 

Avalyn got back late that afternoon with circles under her eyes. She seemed grateful for Ren’s presence, and she went inside to change while he and Hux brought in four large boxes of belongings from the car. Ren glanced at Hux as they set the last one down in the guest bedroom.

“Should I call for some pizza?”

“No,” Hux said, smiling faintly at the thought. “We’ve got meals for months in the fridge.” Hux sighed, his fingers splayed over the brown cardboard. “You should stay to help us eat them.”

“You couldn’t make me leave if you wanted to,” Ren said, disappearing to better organize the boxes they'd carried in before Hux could tell if he was playing or not. When Avalyn came back downstairs, he and Ren were sitting together in the living room as Ren tore apart a sitcom aloud.

“What are you watching?” Ava asked, trailing her hand on the banister as she walked down the steps.

“According to Ben here,” Hux motioned with a limp wrist at his seething companion, “we are watching ‘everything that is wrong with modern society as we know it’. And that’s just his most recent quote, not even my favorite one.”

“What was your favorite?” Ren asked.

“The one about the man being a ‘mutated sack of butter that struggles with modern concepts like the microwave’.” Avalyn burst into a chuckle, one that sounded so much like his mother’s laugh that Hux turned to check and see if she had come in with his sister. To his infinite relief, it was still just the three of them. He relaxed back into the pillows, and Ava joined them.

For a few hours, Avalyn seemed content to just sit and listen to Ren and Hux riff on whatever they were watching. After that, with the fading light outside lulling her into a much-needed calm, she fell asleep on the smaller of the two couches, curled tightly in on herself much like Hux had been earlier that morning. The remaining silence between the two men seemed to leave both Ren and Hux at a loss.

“I should probably head out,” Ren said.

“You don’t have to,” Hux said softly. Ren paused, tilting his head, amused at the concept. Hux swallowed hard. “I meant what I said before. You could stay.”

“I want to,” Ren whispered. Hux’s chest clenched at the idea of Ren yearning for his close proximity. “But I need to think about some things first. Walk me out?”

“Forget where the door is, did we?” Hux asked, trying pathetically to joke to cover up his anxiety. Swinging his legs off of the couch, he hoped he sounded relaxed. Ren stood up from the floor where he had been laying by Ava’s feet with a pillow. He threw the pillow onto the couch as he walked to the door, narrowly missing Hux’s head. Hux followed him into the kitchen, watched as Ren put on his boots in the mudroom. He wanted to ask him to come back, to ask him to come back as soon as possible, but the words caught in his throat.

“So, are you busy tomorrow?” Ren asked, still hunched over tying a knot in his black leather.

“No. Probably just going to spend some time going through Ingram’s stuff, maybe take Avalyn out of the house. She seems…”

“Exhausted,” Ren agreed. Hux nodded.

“Yeah. She deserves a break.”

“I never asked you, but…” Ren started saying, standing up suddenly enough to make Hux take a step back. Even despite their intamacy before, Hux felt he couldn’t be too near. He didn’t trust himself. His hands wanted to go to Ren’s sides, his lips to Ren’s neck. He stifled the urges, the smell of pine and limestone lingering in his sister’s mudroom from the underside of his ex's boot. Ren seemed unaffected. “I was wondering what you’re doing for work lately.”

“I'm, uh," Hux hesitated, momentarily forgetting. He cleared his throat. "I manage a timber-framing company,” Hux said, putting on his own tennis shoes and holding his head low so that Ren couldn’t see him blush slightly at the question. “I’m in charge of a team of architects and construction members, and we work to build everything from log cabins to pergolas to bridges. Anything that requires wood, honestly.”

“Do you still draw?” Ren asked. Hux’s heart caught at the question.

“Every day, if I can,” Hux said with a smile, pulling the tongue from his right shoe hard so that it would free itself from where it had caught and crumpled on the top of his foot. “Lately not so much, though, with everything.”

“I see.”

“Why do you ask?” Hux asked, opening the door outside to the garden as he closed the door to the house. It was misty, but not raining. The woods surrounding his sister’s house were verdant and lush, but there was a slight chill in the air. The petunias lining the sidewalk to the carpark shivered in the slight breeze.

“I was just curious.” Ren dug his keys out of his jeans pocket, and Hux almost rolled his eyes at the cluster of keychains the man had on his clip. But one in particular caught his attention, glinting silver and green in the waning light.

“Hey,” he caught Ren’s shoulder as he turned to go, his other hand at the keychain cluster. “Is that-”

“Oh, yeah,” Ren gripped the keys in his fist, as if embarrassed. The gemston-encrusted pewter H disappeared into his palm. “I, uh… I’ve just never cleaned off my keychain ring.”

“Really?” Hux narrowed his eyes, squinting at the blush rising on Ren’s face. This was a first. Hux couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his ex blush. The man shook his head, as if hoping that his hair would cover his face; it stayed put in the braids.

“Mmm. Well, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I’d like that,” Hux said, but before he could breathe the last syllable Ren had pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. He was gone in an instant, leaving Hux cold and stunned on the walkway in front of the beautiful slate gray tudor. Hux watched him drive away, listening for the telltale bass that always accompanied Ren wherever he drove, and finally made his legs move when Ren’s pickup disappeared down the road going God knows where.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***there is some dubious consent in this chapter, very brief, no sex. Ren gets pinned and violently kissed by Hux during the most heated part of an argument. Hux realizes what he did wasn't with Ren's permission and apologizes and they work through the process. The kiss is not romanticized in any way, and even when Ren stops fighting it's clear he doesn't want that. Hux doesn't touch him for the rest of the chapter, either ***


	5. Chapter 5

Avalyn woke up after supper, when Hux was flipping through various channels to try to find something to watch. He had the volume on low so that she wouldn’t wake up, but maybe the few hours she’d napped were enough for her to feel energized again.

“You hungry?” she asked as she stretched her arms high above her head. Hux nodded, even though he wasn’t. Food was becoming the thing that could connect him to other people, even though he didn’t want it. Ren had cooked for him and brought some healing out of Hux he didn’t know he'd needed. As Hux had cleared away their dishes earlier, he’d mused about that. Maybe he could experience the same with his sister, in a way.

“What do we have?” Hux called when Avalyn went into the kitchen.

“Jesus, where do I start?”

“Start with dessert,” he answered. “I saw literally five kinds of pie in there.”

“Want to split one with me for dinner?”

“Only if you choose the key lime,” Hux said, getting to his feet to walk in after her. He paused, watching her through the doorway. She moved like his mother, like a dancer. Her voice might’ve been gruff, her eyes sharp, but there was a grace to her that she’d always shared with Ingram; it had to have come from their mother, Hux reasoned. Hux wondered brokenly if he’d ever had that within himself, or if he had only ever known it from his siblings. He wondered if he was inescapably made of his father, of the same roughly-hewn cloth that hurt instead of healed, that damaged instead of danced.

“I thought your favorite was chocolate chess,” Ava murmured, pulling apart the fridge as she tapped one foot behind her other ankle. Hux remembered himself, swallowed down the empty feeling of having lost something irreplaceable.

“Things change.”

* * *

 

Hux didn’t find himself asleep until dawn, and he only dozed in the pale blue light streaming in from the curtains of his sister’s spare room. His sleep was frustrating and unfulfilling, like this entire trip back to his hometown had been so far. He woke up with the morbid thought that the spare bedroom should have been a nursery. It was enough to make him leave the house, to go for a walk, just so he could escape the ghosts of possibilities long past.

He found himself going further than he’d intended, as he always seemed to do in this town. He walked past yards swept clean of all leaves and traces of debris. Some of them had people on their large, expansive porches that watched Hux with polite disinterest. Most were empty, aglow in the dawn’s vague light. Eventually the yards’ picket fences dispersed into overgrown, ivy-covered slats of wood with larger spaces between. Honeysuckle blossoms reflected what should have been early morning sunshine back onto Hux’s face, and he plucked one to bite into and suck the nectar from its tip. As he trailed his fingers along the forested fences, he plucked flower after flower, leaving a trail of beautiful carcasses in his wake.

Hux had always thought of himself as birdlike in a lot of ways. The idea that he could sustain himself on this, that he could lick nectar from the pistils of the flowers as his breakfast, was strangely comforting. Summer had passed, so he doubted there would be many hummingbirds left to enjoy the honeysuckle after him, and he found his daydreams floating to the feeders he and Ingram had filled with margarita mix in the heat of July, eagerly anticipating the tiny, quick little balls of emerald and fuchsia.

Soon, the sidewalk beneath his feet turned to gravel, and as if in a dream he looked up at the leaf-shrouded walkway to the Organa Quarry. The honeysuckle petal and hummingbird daydream fell away, both crashing noiselessly to the gravel underfoot as he approached his ex’s patch of land. Hux knew he should turn around, some instinct within him welling up. He would walk in, he knew without a doubt, and find Ren in someone else’s arms. That was why Ren had left last night, Hux told himself. The thought alone was torture. Hux knew he shouldn’t walk forward, shouldn’t creep up the broken wooden steps to approach the door to the studio apartment. He knew he shouldn’t turn to stare off at the cliff just beyond the woods, where the quarry stretched before where his ex slept. He knew he should just leave.

His feet heavy, his cheeks warm with the slight sunshine that had begun to peek out from the clouds, Hux did not leave. Across the green veil of trees, both pine and deciduous, Hux could see the pale bones of unearthed limestone peeking out from where machines now lay dormant and coppery in their tracks. From the vantage point of the studio apartment, which housed a garage underneath of it, Hux could see several acres out into the mountains. He sighed deeply, determined to walk back down the steps and go home.

But he turned back to Ren’s door instead. Feeling like a creep, having come this far but being too cowardly to knock, Hux leaned over on Ren’s landing so that he could try to catch a glimpse into his ex’s apartment. So that he could further hurt himself, or maybe so that he give Ren a chance to surprise him… however unlikely that was.

The bed was barely visible from this angle, and Hux hated himself as he clung to the landing to get a better view. The quilt came into view, the one that Ren had worn that  day when he’d picked Hux up off the side of the road, just after the funeral. It was bunched up to the side, too empty to be housing a secret body in its folds. Hux saw skin, the pale length making him lean further. One thick bicep thrown over a pillow. A mess of black curls, still braided back. A pillow between a pair of knees.

Ren was alone, curled up and cuddling nothing more than an extra pillow in his strong arms. Hux had almost given himself a stroke for nothing, over an empty studio in the early dawn hours of the morning.

Hux gave a barking laugh, feeling ridiculous, and almost fell down the steps when Ren flinched at the sound even from within the apartment. He’d always been such a light sleeper, but it had been so long that Hux had forgotten. Without thinking, Hux bolted down the steps two at a time, desperate to get away unseen. He didn’t care that he was loud, he had already been heard so that didn’t hardly matter anymore. He just had to get out. There was no explanation for why he had ended up on Ren’s doorstep, and on top of how he'd pinned his ex the other day, it was a recipe for being told to stop coming around.

In his haste to escape, Hux slipped on the gravel, going down hard and scraping up the palm of his right hand. He grunted, pushing off almost on all fours like an animal, and rounded the corner of the driveway hidden in honeysuckle just as Ren’s studio door opened with a bang.

He jogged until he was sure Ren wasn’t following him, a gut instinct that led him to the edge of town. He only slowed when he passed another jogger dressed in name-brand athletic-wear, sporting blue-tooth cordless earbuds. The image jolted Hux back into looking around the neighborhood, into taking stock of where he was. Suburbs, east of Ren's place, near their rival high school. Hux knew the area. Instead of going home, Hux walked to the corner store nearby, the one across from the gas station with one boarded-up window as a reminder of a hurricane long past.

Hux walked in, grateful for the blast of too-cold air conditioning even though the day only held the faintest dregs of summer heat outside. The clerk at the counter didn’t even look up. Hux strolled down the aisle, past two-liters of Diet Coke and Cheerwine, past packets of peanuts and bags of popcorn, past all the SlimJims in their airtight, condom-like, vacuum-sealed packages. Hux absently grabbed a candy bar as he walked, contemplated getting a coffee and decided against it. As he was walking up to the register, he patted his pants pocket and felt his pulse stutter. He hadn’t brought his wallet. He sighed, really wanting the salted chocolate even though Avalyn had found twenty brownies wrapped up in the fridge the other night. It was the principle of the thing. He needed to go running, craved the pumping of blood he'd felt just now as he booked it out of the quarry, and so he would… but only after he ate this fucking candy.

About to set the bar on the counter and walk back to Ava's to get his wallet, Hux caught the face shape of the man behind the counter. His heart stopped. Hux recognized him, even though the man still had yet to look up from the local paper. That man used to work at the hardware store. He was about ten years older than Hux, and the last time Hux had seen him, this man had been fucking Ren.

It felt unreal. For a moment, it felt as if Hux were submerged in cold water, drowning carefully with patient, calculating hands wrapped around the back of his neck. He remembered to inhale, slowly and while counting to ten, and refocused on coming back to the world of the living. Instead of leaving and putting the Snicker’s back, Hux assumed an expression of disdain. He walked back over to the candy aisle, and immersed himself in trying to appear as if he were comparing the details of each bar to the other before deciding so casually. He’d be damned if he walked out of here without buying something, without confronting the man who’d ended his last relationship, but even he couldn’t ignore the futility of the situation. How can you buy something with no money? He was going to figure it out even if it killed him.

When the bell rang to signal another customer had come in, Hux moved to the back as if he were looking for drinks instead. He felt a blush creeping up his face, needed to be in the cool beer corner near the ‘employees only’ door.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” the man behind the counter called, retched a laugh forth as if he had something stuck eternally in the back of his throat. Hux grimaced, imagined that he smelled like venison jerky and stale Newports. “Ben fucking Solo.”

Hux had to grab the shelf to stay up. The pain when he gripped it tightly with his scraped hand steadied him, but only slightly. Panicked, he pressed to the cold beer, hoping he could make himself small enough and that Ren didn’t drink enough for Hux to be noticed back there.

“Give me a pack of Virginia Slims,” Ren said, his voice low and empty.

“You smoke that shit?”

“No. They’re for a friend.”

Hux’s eyes darted, searching his memory. Ren didn’t smoke Slims, if he smoked at all. Hux used to smoke Camel Menthol Lights, because it annoyed his mother. Virginia Slims, though, those had always been-

“By friend, you mean that Hux bitch?” the man cackled. Hux’s skin felt too tight, his head too airy and light. Ren said nothing. “Take my advice. I heard from Trevor that bitch's pool’s all dried up. Best look for a watering hole elsewhere.”

Hux wanted to smash the man’s teeth into the plastic counter so that he could never speak again, wanted to make the man swallow his own shredded gums and chipped incisors. The man knew Ava's ex, enough to gossip with him. Where could he work? Could Hux feasibly find him, make him regret speaking so crudely?

“Watch your fucking mouth, Jay,” Ren warned, his voice low and powerful. Even the radio seemed to be intimidated, crackling into static for a moment as the clerk rung up the cigarettes. Hux swallowed hard.

“Fine. Jeez. Touchy. Anything else?”

“That’ll be it.” A clang of coins on the counter, the sound of a palm scraping them across the plastic and a register ringing him up.

“Hey, Ben,” the guy called, stopping the footsteps that Hux assumed were Ren’s heading to the door. “I uh… I just remembered about her brother. I’m sorry.”

Hux snarled. The betrayal had been years ago. This hardware-shifting yokel should have apologized to Hux immediately, instead of trying to finish when Hux had walked in on him holding Ren by the neck-

“Ingram was a good kid,” Ren said quietly. Hux brought a hand to his mouth to stifle a soft noise of realization. How could he have thought it was about him? Of course. His brother. Hux screwed his eyes shut, guilt threatening to bring him all the way down to the floor.

There was silence, as if the two men were struggling with how to either continue the conversation or end it as quickly as possible. Hux heard Ren move, heard the hushed noise of his flannel under his favorite black hoodie. Jay, the asshole, stopped him once more.

“So! Is, uh, Mercer in town?”

There was a long pause, during which Hux assumed Ren was trying to make himself leave rather than take the bait of the prolonged conversation. There was a sharp intake of breath; Ren had never been good about walking away from a fight.

“Why do you ask?” Ren asked. Judging by his tone, he was frowning, trying not to show how upset he was. Hux closed his eyes to block out the image of that beautiful mouth pulled taut in a disapproving line.

“I reckoned he’d come in for the funeral, but we got bets at the lot whether his dad would kick him out of town right after or not. He still here?”

“He was at the funeral,” Ren said quietly. “And he’s staying for a while yet, far as I know.”

“Does his daddy know you’re sniffing around him again?”

“Who said I was?” Ren asked. His voice was a warning, but Jay was not perceptive enough to decipher it. Hux shuddered, but couldn’t tell if it was from Ren’s tone or the blasting AC in the back room.

“I assume-” the man dragged the second syllable of the word out long and singsong, “that you haven’t been able to keep your hands to yourself, am I right?” Ren didn’t answer, and Jay snorted. “Thought so. We got bets on how long ‘til his daddy kicks you in the teeth, too, y’know. Gator says he thinks Elijah’ll sooner knock the fuck out of his son than you, but I think it’s the other way around.”

“Do you now?” A second warning. Dangerously low, now, and through gritted teeth. Like he was wearing something to alter his voice. Hux shivered.

“Hey, look,” Jay laughed, sounding like he’d ingested ash. “I’m just callin’ em like I see.” Ren went to leave, and Jay coughed wetly into his hand. “Speakin’ of calls, you ring me up if you’re ever in the market for some tougher meat. Lord knows you’re gonna bite right through Mercer if he stays for more than a few days in Allenstand.”

Hux turned, about to walk out the door, about to show the man exactly where he could stick proposals like that, but Ren seemed to beat him to it. There was a scuffle, the sound of someone’s shirt against a plastic countertop, a crack, and heaving protests. Two men were suddenly breathing heavily, and had Hux not heard the disdain and anger in Ren’s voice moments before, part of him would have thought they were excited. Jay let out a slow cry of pain, killing that illusion instantly.

“If you ever,” Ren breathed, barely audible above the soft music flowing through the radio into the corner store, “say his name again, I will end you. You hear me? You don’t deserve to even think it, no less spit it out like you just did. You ever do, and I’ll take you apart piece by fucking piece, so that even your buddies down at the Home Depot won’t know how to put you together again.”

“Jesus-”

“Now. Repeat after me: I will never…” there was a pause, then a violent jostle. “I will never!”

“I will never!”

“Say that name,” Ren said slowly.

“Say that name.”

“Out loud again.”

“Out loud again,” Jay whimpered. There was a loud crash, a scramble as Jay struggled to stay righted where Ren had no doubt thrown him to the ground.

“As for your  _ meat _ ?” Ren spat on the floor, as if even saying it left a bad taste in his mouth. “Fucking keep it. You weren’t tough, and you weren’t good. You were just the first one I found who said yes to the deal. You tell yourself it was more than that if you want, but you mean less than nothing to me, and I won't hesitate to snuff out your fucking life in an instant.” Stunned silence. Footsteps, boots on their way out, finally a pathetic snivel from the downed cashier. The man drew in quick, stilted breaths, wracking his brain for some sort of comeback.

“Fuck you!” Jay shouted as the door chime signaled that Ren had already left. There was unsteady breathing, a curse, the sound of something being kicked. Probably a display stand. Footsteps stomping out, the slam of a back room door. Hux glanced out from where he was standing, feeling warm and cold at once.

Hearing that Ren had literally just taken the first person to bed who said yes to… a deal? It didn’t make any sense. It didn’t match up to what Ren had told him that night, when he had shouted at Hux that he had been getting fucked on the side for months, that he hadn’t loved Hux for months. Hux wandered down the candy aisle, fingering the Snicker’s bars in their display box. In an act of petty revenge, he turned from the one security camera and pocketed five of them. He left with the contraband smuggled in his black sweatpants, but somehow still felt like he had paid for them regardless of his lack of cash.


	6. Chapter 6

“You were gone a while,” Avalyn commented when Hux got in. He emptied his pockets on the kitchen table, the candy bar bouncing on the cherrywood, but she barely raised her eyes to him. She was focused on sorting out tshirts from a box she’d brought home. “Help me choose which ones to make into a quilt, and which ones to donate.”

“Pass.”

“Mercer.”

“Look,” Hux went to the fridge to get the milk out. “I don’t care about tshirts. I vote you either make them all into the quilt, or donate them all. I wouldn’t have known which were special to Ingram anyway.” He poured cold coffee from the pot, probably stale from yesterday, into a blue butterfly mug. It had a yellow monogram A on the front. Hux sneered, adding the barest smidge of milk to the brew. “If you have stuff like pictures, old mementos, keepsakes… I can try for that. I remember a lot from our childhood I think he would want to keep. Would want you to have,” Hux turned to Avalyn with a vague smile, aware of his phrasing.

“Stuff he’d want you to have, too, y’know,” she answered, looking tired. She finally glanced over at the table with her full attention as Hux moved to microwave his cold coffee. “Why did you buy five Snicker’s bars?”

“Reckless impulse.” Hux stood by the microwave, trying desperately to digest what had happened at the corner store before he spoke again. When the machine beeped, he took out his mug and sat down across from Ava at the kitchen table. “Are you smoking again, Bo?”

“A little,” she confessed immediately. “Why?”

“I was just curious.”

“You want one?”

“I quit last year.”

“So is that a no?” she asked, bringing out a slightly crumpled pack from her pocket. There were only two left in it. Hux sighed.

“I didn’t say that.”

Sitting together on the wraparound porch, Hux marveled at the improvements Avalyn had done on the house by herself. When she had first married Trevor, Hux had skyped her and Ingram to see the house. It had the bare bones of finesse, had that untapped potential, but it hadn’t been anything worth looking at. Through hard work, maybe borne of a need for distraction, Avalyn had converted it to suit her tastes. There was a screen around part of the wraparound to escape the mosquitos in summertime. Windchimes were on every corner of the porch, their bronze and colored glass somehow matching the muted seafoam of the curtains in the windows. There was a porch swing on one side, a patio table on the other. Both were painted a salty blue, slightly different than the seafoam in the windows, and Hux had always figured it was a color that should have looked awkward next to the slate of her siding. It worked, however, and was somehow charming against the backdrop of green trees surrounding her yard. It was like his sister had conjured a cloud of muted blues to live in, sitting in the middle of her patch of land, her house waiting patiently for its chance to rain.

Wordlessly, Avalyn set an ashtray between the two of them on the patio table as Hux sat down. She pushed the box of Ingram memories between them with her foot, lighting a slim cigarette as she pulled another from the pack. Before handing the second one to Hux, she held the tip to her lit embers and transferred the flame. Hux took it hesitantly, somehow feeling guilty. He should tell her to stop, tell her she shouldn’t succumb like this. Instead, he took the filter between his teeth and inhaled halfway.

“Your hand is bleeding,” she commented, smoke on the edge of her words.

“No it’s not,” Hux said, showing her as he rubbed his thumb across the dried scrapes. “Not anymore, anyway.”

They looked out into the yard, watched a cardinal swoop down and fly off out of their vision as they smoked together. Hux felt slight shame, as if he shouldn’t be letting his older sister see him like this. In light of the morning he’d had, though, he decided to just roll with the punches today.

“I dreamed about him last night,” Ava said, bending over to dig out a few notebooks from the box.

“Oh yeah?”

“I dreamed he was at a track meet. One of your last ones, before you graduated. He was running after you. He wanted you to stop, to give him a piggy back ride,” Avalyn laughed, a mirthless sound. Hux swallowed, guilt gnawing at him even through someone else’s dream. “And then for some reason we were all in a Jeep with the top down, like the one Poe used to have before he sold it off. We were going to get ice cream, but all they had was mint. It was like toothpaste. We all laughed about it later. In the dream, I mean.”

“Dameron sold the Jeep? In real life?”

“Yeah, he ran that poor thing’s engine into the ground. Rey tried to fix it, but it was fried. Needed more repairs than he could afford. That girl had been keeping it alive as long as she could, but it still gave out a couple of years ago.”

“Never pegged Rey to be the mechanic type,” Hux sighed, twisting the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger. She was a girl in Ingram’s class, kind of white trash and somehow related distantly to Kylo… although Kylo could never quite pinpoint how. Her boyfriend, Finn, had been on the football team with Ingram. Hux remembered Ing telling him about Finn, about how awkward and happy he looked at homecoming. Hux sniffed. “Is Dameron still working in Asheville?”

“Yeah. Unfortunately. He’s a youth pastor down there,” Avalyn scowled. “He called, tried to get me to go meet him for old time’s sake. Tried to get us both to go meet him. I told him no thanks.”

“Thank God,” Hux said, narrowing his eyes in a smirk when Ava looked over to check if he had meant the pun.

“Shut up and help me out,” she laughed, throwing school books onto Hux’s lap so that he had to snap his smoke between his teeth to catch them. Shit fell out of them, papers and envelopes and old notes. Hux cursed and set the notebooks on the table between them by the ashtray.

He knelt to scoop them together, pausing when he felt one envelope that weighed more than it should. He glanced up at his sister, but she was looking elsewhere. He traced his fingers along the edge, feeling the vague rectangular outline of a metal object inside its paper belly. He slipped it into his pocket, musing that it weighed almost exactly like a stolen candy bar against his hip. Gathering the rest of the papers, he sat back in the patio chair and tapped his cigarette into the ashtray.

“Did Ben stop by today?”

“Not yet,” Avalyn said, distracted as she sifted through a binder filled with what looked like calculus notes. “But he called. Asked for you.”

“This early?”

“Said he had a bad dream, something about wanting to check on you.”

“You two and your dreams," Hux said past his cigarette, hefting the papers back into their box. He took the smoke from his mouth, tapped its tip into the ashtray. "Is that all?”

“Duke,” Avalyn snapped, “you are not fifteen anymore. Either call him yourself, or fuck off about it. I will not play he-said, he-said with you.”

“The phrase is he-said, she-said,” Hux mumbled, feeling his cheeks redden.

“Not with you, it’s not,” Avalyn jabbed, and Hux looked up in time to see her curl her lip and stick her tongue out at him.

“Who’s fifteen here?” Hux laughed. The smell of pine, Slims, and his sister’s shampoo suffused the porch in a glow that matched the growing sunlight through the leaves of the forest around them. Feeling more like a child, finally in a good way, Hux resumed looking through papers and sorting them into either trash or keepsake piles. He ignored the cold metal against his hipbone, focused on the methodical movements in the moment.

* * *

 

Hux was pacing. He had his cellphone in his hands, had gotten the number from Ava, all he had to do was punch it in. Ren had said, ‘see you tomorrow’ and it was tomorrow. Afternoon of tomorrow, steadily approaching evening of tomorrow. Soon to be the day after tomorrow. Hux was impatient and couldn't help but hate the sensation of being thrown back into the dynamic he’d always held with Ren.

Hux would get busy, come back, find Ren craving his attention and desperate to get it any way that he could. But then Ren would seemingly get his fill, wander off for a while, try to be alone and get Hux to seek him further. Hux never chased him back then. He’d always waited, angrily, for Ren to come to his senses. And Ren always did.

So calling now to tell Ren he missed him today, it almost felt stranger, foreign, like an admission of weakness. Hux sighed, trying to steel himself to just get on with it already, because he was weak. If he admitted that to himself, surely he could admit it to Ren.

“You should get out of the house,” Avalyn commented.

“Why?”

“You look like a caged dog, pacing like that. Get the fuck out, go see a movie or something. You're stressing me out just by lookin' at you.”

“Fine.” Hux grabbed his coat from where it was hanging by the door. “But I’m leaving because I want to, not because you told me to.”

"Be an asshole about it then, why dontcha," Ava murmured.

"No you are," Hux snapped immediately.

The phrase made his sister burst into laughter, and she didn’t stop at Hux’s glare.

"Are we back in high school again?" she asked through giggles. Hux grinned.

"Remember Ingram's favorite thing to call you?"

"No," she calmed, pausing with a smile. "What?"

"A turd sandwich, without the bread."

Avalyn had to sit down. She laughed so much that Hux found he couldn’t help but join her, both of them almost silent in their cackling. It had been their go-to insult in almost every argument, one that had diffused their tension every time. After a moment, Avalyn put on a fake stern expression and pointed to the door.

“Alright, now get! Take your fucking Snickers bars while you’re at it!” she added, throwing all five at Hux. He scrambled to pick them up, his sides hurting from how hard he'd laughed. It was so ridiculous, so stupid. He was actually back in high school for a minute, expecting Avalyn to give him a curfew for him to make it home by. Even after he’d left the mudroom, he could still hear Avalyn’s giggle, and it steadied his footsteps until he could get to his car and drive away.

Hux wandered around a bit instead of getting right on the highway to go to the movie theater down in Asheville, postponing the act of doing something once again for the act of pacing. After ten minutes, he convinced himself that he just wanted to take a scenic route. After thirty minutes, he admitted that he was nervous for some reason at having to go see a movie alone. After an hour, Hux knew he was being straight up ridiculous but was powerless to fight it.

He’d done it before, had gone to see a few horror films that nobody else was interested in back in Maryland, and it had been enjoyable. It was normal, people did that all the time. But tonight, his cell phone burning his thigh with its presence, Hux just couldn’t. He turned down the gravel road that was familiar after only a few days, not even questioning how he'd gotten there, telling himself that Ren wasn’t there. He wouldn’t be there, he would be in Asheville, he would be gone.

Ren’s lights were on. Shit. He was home.

Hux parked, hesitating, turning his music down as if afraid it would give him away. He didn’t want to walk up the same steps he’d taken this morning, and almost didn’t want to see Ren. The memory of hearing Ren spit on the corner store floor was at the forefront of Hux’s mind, and juxtaposed with that keychain he’d caught a glimpse with and the tender way Ren had washed Hux’s hair the other night--

Hux got out of the car, refusing to wallow in confusion any longer. He took a step forward, stopped, then knelt to grab a tiny handful of pebbles from the gravel driveway. He lobbed one at the window, then followed it with two more for good measure. A shadow appeared, silhouetted by the light from inside, and then the window opened a crack.

“Hux?”

“Hey… are you busy?” Hux called, his voice too loud, too nervous. He grit his teeth at Ren’s silence. He felt oddly fragile, embarrassed standing in the fading sunlight hoping just to see his ex’s face. What if there were someone in there with him? Hux had interrupted. His cheeks burned. “I should have called. I’m sorry.” Hux turned, walking around his car to open the door and get in, hoping to drive off in a spin of gravel before Ren could confirm his suspicions. He caught the handle and pulled, forgot that the doors locked automatically after a few second of the engine being off if the keys were out of the car. Hux fumbled, pulling his keys from his jeans pocket, trying to find the key fob with shaking hands.

“Hey,” Ren shouted, the door to his studio kicking open with a clap that made Hux jump and drop his keys in the gravel entirely. He cursed, squatting to find them and hurry out of the driveway, flinching once again when he stood up and Ren was standing in front of him with an amused grin on his face. “Woah, chill out,” Ren laughed.

“I’m sorry, I’ll go,” Hux stammered, angry with himself for blushing. The more he thought about it, the hotter his cheeks got, it was such a useless, vicious cycle. Ren reached forward, as if to help Hux with his keys, and Hux jerked away automatically. Ren’s expression changed, darkening. “Ren, don’t-”

“Did something happen?” Ren demanded. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Hux forced out, running his hands through his hair, the keys dangling from his pinky and clanking awkwardly against his temple as he did so. “I’m just… I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

“You don’t?” Ren asked, sounding bemused. Before Hux could protest, he felt the back of a large, cool hand against his forehead. “You feel a bit feverish,” Ren commented, as if he were talking to himself.

“I’m not sick,” Hux protested, swiping Ren’s hand away. “Yesterday you said you’d see me tomorrow, and it's tomorrow now. And I was going to go to a movie, but I don’t want to drive all the way to Asheville alone, and so I thought, since it’s tomorrow-”

“Hux.” Ren held up a hand, shushing his nervous ramblings. “Did you come here to ask me out?” Ren asked, tilting his head so that his black curls fell to the side. Hux grit his teeth, saying nothing. Ren’s expression relaxed into the ghost of a smile, and he turned to walk back to his studio.

“Where are you going?” Hux called after him.

“To change for our date. Don’t go anywhere, I’ll be right down.” Ren turned, pointing at him. “Stay.”

Hux contemplated leaving out of spite, just for that remark, but his giddiness at the prospect of spending time with Ren won out. Hux leaned against the driver’s side, facing towards the woods with the empty store to his left and his back to the apartment. He blinked, realizing that Ren had no curtains.

No. He would stay facing the woods. All the more reason to give him privacy, if he deliberately didn’t put curtains in his one room apartment.

All the more reason to look, too, Hux reasoned. It wasn’t like earlier in the morning, when he’d taken a peek inside. It was not his fault this time if he stayed put where Ren told him to, and just so happened to get a glance at Ren’s torso as he changed. Hux turned, folding both of his arms and leaning forward on the roof of the car. He closed his eyes halfway, enough to seem bored, and peered up at the studio window.

The flash of a torso, a shirt being flung across the room into a hamper, and Hux forced himself to shut his eyes completely. This wasn’t okay. He got in the car, not trusting himself to keep from looking up and drooling over Ren's body without his permission. When Kylo came downstairs about ten minutes later, he didn’t comment on the blush that still tinged Hux’s cheeks and ears. Mercifully, he buckled his seatbelt and sat back with a happy sigh. He smelled good, like cinnamon and black cherries.

“So. What movie are we going to see?” Ren asked, running his hands through his curls. Hux blanked, staring at the dashboard in embarrassment.

“I have no idea.”

“Cool,” Ren replied, and for a minute Hux turned to glare at the sarcastic comment. Ren just smiled over at him from the passenger’s seat. “So what kind of music are you into nowadays?”

* * *

 

“I’m going to buy some chocolate,” Ren said when they bought their tickets to see the only thing playing without a long wait. It was a horror movie Hux had seen before, one that he’d enjoyed enough to pay to see again. Hux rolled his eyes as Ren started to list out sweets he was going to get.

“I’ve got you covered on candy. Don’t fucking buy more,” Hux said. Ren made a small noise of protest and closed the gap between them to lean heavily on Hux’s shoulder. Hux bit his lip at the closeness. “Oh lay off. Get a soda if you want,” he said, elbowing Ren gently in the ribs.

"You don't have to be such a hard-ass," Ren joked.

"You don't have to be such a crybaby," Hux answered, reaching out to graze his fingertips against Ren's the slightest bit. He hoped Kylo knew he was kidding, hoped he knew this was nice. As if he could hear Hux's thoughts , Ren threw his arm over Hux’s shoulder and pulled him flush against his side. It was a bit awkward to walk that way, stuck together, but it felt familiar and calming. They got some popcorn, because Ren naturally was not satisfied with Hux’s promise of chocolate later, and a large soda to share.

“I wanted my own drink, just so you know,” Hux protested.

“It’s better this way,” Ren answered. “Cheaper! We share one with free refills.”

“You’re getting up to get the refills,” Hux said, settling into the seat in the middle-top of the theater.

“Don’t sit there,” Ren said.

“This is ideal for sound and field of vision,” Hux snapped, deciding that this was a lot of work that he had blatantly blocked from his memories of dates with Kylo Ren. “Where do you propose we sit instead?”

“Up there?” Ren stretched a hopeful hand towards the back row. There was nobody in the movie theater except for one old man in the very front row, and Hux sighed laboriously. The previews weren’t even on yet, so he had time to argue.

“Why there.”

“It’s a horror film, Hux. How can I protect you from the nasties if our backs are exposed?” Ren winked, then, rebooting Hux’s brain for a milisecond. How was he so endearing while at the same time such a huge pain in the ass? He turned, walking up to the top row, expecting Hux to follow.

Hux sat there for a minute, but he knew he would get up. Not only was Ren alluring in his confidence, but he had also taken the popcorn and the drink with him. Had he always been this way? Hux tried to remember the man as he had been, in high school, then after graduation. He had been volatile, prone to crying easily, upset at small things, sassy and confident, yes. But Hux had been immature as well, hadn’t he? Hadn't he changed? Did Ren like him more now, because he thought Hux had changed?

Moping with his dark thoughts, ones Avalyn had sent him to the movies in order to escape from, Hux moved up to sit by Ren with a huff.

“Jeez, Hux, if you really want the middle row, we can move back to the middle row.”

“Give me the drink,” Hux demanded, settling in. He pulled out the Snickers bars from his pockets, throwing a few onto Ren’s lap. “Here.”

“What are these?”

“I’ll tell you after the movie if you behave,” Hux promised. As if taunting him, Ren held steady eye contact as he picked up a piece of popcorn and threw it into the air, deftly catching it in his mouth. Hux sneered. “Is that the real reason why you bought this salty mess?”

Ren smiled as he chewed, revealing everything while saying nothing. Hux rolled his eyes and settled in, deciding to test the limits of their physical affection. While he waited for the previews, he looped his arm around Ren’s and adjusted himself so that he could lean on his shoulder.

“Movie hasn’t even started yet,” Ren said, moving to get more comfortable. He didn’t shove him off, though; in fact, his hand turned over on the armrest. Hux knew he could slip his fingers there, where they belonged, between Ren’s. It would be so easy. He pretended not to notice, and unwrapped one of the candy bars instead.

By the time the movie actually started, Hux wondered if he truly did have a fever. He had never felt so hot, so anxious. Ren’s thumb had found Hux’s relaxed wrist and was moving slow, easy lines across his pulse. It had made it harder for Hux to stay laying on Ren’s shoulder; he was convinced that Ren would feel how fast his pulse was just through the connection between Hux’s chest and Ren’s biceps.

When the first trailer had started and the lights had dimmed, Ren had actually rested his cheek on Hux’s head for a bit, as if nuzzling him. That had made Hux sit up right away. It hadn’t helped, because his ex had adjusted his knee to where it was right up against Hux’s, pressing close but not close enough to make Hux uncomfortable. Hux had allowed it, and tried not to enjoy it. He’d tried not to blush, but was failing epically. Luckily, the darkness of the theater and the general lighting of the film was doing a good job of covering the rise in color on Hux’s cheeks and neck. But now, Ren was leaning in to whisper something to him every five seconds, his lips tickling against Hux’s earlobe with every breath. Hux couldn’t stand it. He really felt like he was too warm and too cold at once, and he never wanted it to end.

“So can she see the future?” Ren asked. Hux sighed.

“I’ve seen this entire movie before,” he answered in a bored tone. “Do you want me to tell you the ending? Cut out all your questions now?”

“No. Just give me some hints.”

“Do you always talk like this during movies?” Hux asked, Ren’s thumb and forefingers grazing his palm now.

“Only when I’m trying to flirt with someone,” Ren answered. Before Hux could stutter out a reply, he felt a salted popcorn kernel press to his lips. He opened his mouth, grateful for something to do besides talk, and noticed that Ren let his index finger stay on Hux’s lower lip a second too long. It was gone before Hux could react, Ren’s face back towards the big screen above the practically empty theater.

Hux chewed pensively. Was Ren affected too, or was this just a game? Was he just trying to distract Hux from being sad? Before Hux could further assess the situation, there was a jump scare. Ren flinched, his fingers immediately tightening around Hux’s. It was instinct, the way Ren pressed close to him in the darkness. Hux bit his lip to keep from grinning. Ren was playing with him, sure, but was not unaffected.

“More popcorn please,” Hux whispered. He felt Ren try to pull his hand free, as if just now realizing he was holding Hux’s, but Hux held fast. Ren made a small noise, one he probably hadn’t intended to let escape, and then cleared his throat. He reached over with his free hand to bring a few kernels to Hux’s mouth.

The theater darkened as the girl onscreen walked through her house in the middle of the night, and Ren’s fingers trailed softly against Hux’s bottom lip as Hux opened his mouth. This time was more obvious. The first time could have been an accident, but the way Ren’s thumb pressed down on Hux’s lip right now, parting his mouth gently, was almost too much to bear. Chewing and swallowing, Hux moved just as Ren was about to pull away. He blamed it on his almost-fever, and the dark of the theater, and the nervous pounding of his own heart mingling with the sounds of Ren breathing heavily to his right. Hux took Ren’s wrist, bringing his fingers to his lips once more.

Hux expected a reaction when he licked the salt from Ren’s fingertips, but not the one he got. The light of a daytime scene illuminated the theater right as Hux took Ren’s index and middle finger into his mouth, sucking them clean. Ren’s eyes were closed, his face creased with concern or something like pain. Hux was about to stop when Ren’s own lips parted and he let out a too-loud moan.

“Hush,” Hux breathed past where Ren was pushing gently against his tongue. They both faced the screen as much as they could while sitting entangled and bothered, even though there was nobody around to convince that they were invested in the film. Hux felt Ren pull away, thought his fun was over, but it was only to readjust in his seat. Ren plunged his fingers back into Hux’s mouth with gentle firmness, not so much demanding as asking, knowing Hux wouldn’t turn him away. He repeated the gesture once, twice, and Hux wished desperately that Ren would never stop. Hux moaned when he felt Ren’s thumb graze underneath of his chin, as if Kylo were reassuring him. A scream from the female protaganist of the film drew a startled flinch from Ren, pulling his hand abruptly from Hux’s mouth with a vulgar pop. Hux stared straight ahead, mouth slightly open, one hand still holding Ren’s wrist as the other clutched panicked at Ren’s fingers.

“We should stop, right?” Kylo whispered, quiet even though he didn’t need to be; the girl on screen was exploring the library nearby, a soft research montage, so Hux could luckily still hear Ren’s every breath. He looked up at Hux, finally opening his eyes. He barely looked in control, was wearing such a depraved expression that Hux had to reposition himself in his seat as well. He ached for him, and it was obvious that Ren felt the same. “Tell me, Hux. Tell me to stop.”

“Do you want to stop?” Hux asked, his nervous heartbeat audible in his ears. He would, if Kylo asked him to.

“Hux, please,” Ren leaned forward, caressing Hux’s cheek with his hand, two of his fingers slightly damp and distracting. Hux moved to close the gap, felt Ren’s hand tangling in his hair as he made a fist. Hux moved his free hand to Ren’s chest, grabbing a fistful of fabric and drawing him nearer. Ren nuzzled his forehead, misinterpreting the gesture. “Tell me to stop.”

“Kiss me,” Hux whispered into Ren’s neck.

“I can’t.” Ren gave a shaky breath, one that ruffled Hux’s bangs.

“You can.” Hux licked at Ren’s earlobe, tracing a line down his neck. “Ren, kiss me back.”

“I fucking want to.” His teeth were clenched, his jaw taut under Hux’s tongue.

“So do,” Hux ordered, moving up to graze his lips across Ren’s chin, dragging his mouth along the corner of Ren’s frown. Ren groaned softly, an exhalation of breath that coincided with the slamming of a door on the screen before them. Hux captured the noise with his mouth, the kiss quick and sloppy. Ren flinched, his fist tightening in Hux’s tresses as if he were going to pull him away, but then something snapped. Hux felt Ren free his other hand, felt his shoulder being pushed into the soft cushion of the seat.

“These arm rests flip up,” Ren said, pulling away only long enough to discard with the barrier of the plastic cupholder between them. Luckily, he’d kept the soda on his right, away from Hux, or else it would have spilled all over them in Ren’s haste. Hux liked the idea, ravenously; he enjoyed the thought of sucking sugar water from the crevice in Ren’s neck, of following the sticky sweet trail lower to his certain demise.

Before his thoughts could wander into too depraved a territory, Hux forced himself to get out of his head. He brought his hands to either side of Ren’s face, smoothing the black curls out of the way to get a better look at him in the dark. Ren’s face, warm to the touch and masked in a tortured expression, was too much. Hux exhaled, shaking his head.

“I missed this.”

“Did you? I don’t remember if we’ve ever made out in a theater before,” Ren murmured, his lips hungry against Hux’s. Hux moaned in reply, unable to form coherent thoughts with Ren pressed so close into him. Ren’s arms enfolded him in an embrace, the two of them straining towards one another now that their seats weren’t disconnected. Hux’s hands roamed around Ren’s torso, tracing lines across his back and ribs, grabbing fistfuls of clothes to pull him closer. Ren moaned softly into Hux, teasing him with licks and sucks so familiar that Hux felt completely conquered at the man’s slightest touch. Ren’s teeth found Hux’s lower lip, nibbling lightly, and Hux pushed him away with difficulty.

“I…” he floundered, breathless, as the girl on the movie screen ignored the signs of a possessed spirit haunting her bedroom as she slept. Hux swallowed hard. “I mean it. I missed this. I missed you.” Ren tried to kiss him again, to hide his pained expression, but Hux wouldn’t allow it. He paused, tracing his thumb under Kylo’s right eye, over the moles he’d held so dear. He’d memorized them long ago, the map they created over Kylo’s face. “Did you miss me too, or… am I…” Hux didn’t know what he was trying to say, and brought his eyes desperately up to Ren’s. He wished that Ren could read his mind, because he couldn’t voice what he needed to. Ren frowned.

“Did I miss you, or do I just like you now because you’re back in town?” Ren finished for him, asking if that was correct. Hux nodded, uncertain if he really was ready for an answer, uncertain if he could stand having this out there without Ren being willing to give one. Ren leaned forward, but instead of pressing his lips to Hux’s he placed his forehead against Hux’s temple.

Hux let him stay there for a while, the voracious need from a moment before slightly dampened, and found himself moving his hands to the back of Ren’s neck, to his shoulders. Hux smoothed out the tension he found there, hoping to give Ren even a fraction of the respite he’d given to Hux in the tub the day before. Ren mumbled something after a minute, but Hux didn’t catch it with the music rising in the background.

“Hmm?”

“I said,” Ren said more clearly, moving so that his cheek was against Hux’s, “that not one day has gone by where I didn’t miss you.” Hux flinched at this, more frightened by this admission than at the reveal of the ghost in the film before him. Ren sighed, dragging his lips away. “But we can talk about it later,” he said, smiling sadly at Hux in the sudden dark. “Don’t you want to watch the movie? I mean, you’ll have to explain some parts to me, since you distracted me here.” Ren tapped Hux’s lower lip with his index finger as if chiding him, a gesture that both angered and aroused Hux in ways he didn’t have the energy to explore at the moment. Instead of saying anything, he simply curled his lip and forced himself to stare at the screen beyond Ren’s head.

Hux fully expected him to reposition the cupholder between them, but Ren simply adjusted Hux in his arms so that they could both see the screen. Ren was warm, comfortable, like a bed you didn’t have to leave. Hux found himself snuggling in deeper, trying without much success to watch the movie instead of fantasizing about how he could next kiss Kylo. He devised elaborate plans, tiny tricks, and enacted a few of them. He tried to get Ren to look over at him so that he could press his lips back to his, tried to convince Ren his lip hurt from where Ren had bit it before and it needed to be kissed better, and even shoved the rest of the man’s candy bar in his mouth so that Kylo would have to kiss him if he wanted a taste of it.

But even with Hux’s brilliant strategizing, every time an opportunity came Ren seemed to just barely turn away. Hux gave up after the third kiss-attempt that Ren turned into a chaste peck on the cheek, contenting himself to sighing at the movie screen while Ren asked him what the character was doing outside in the first place.


	7. Chapter 7

“I never would have guessed that her father had put the ghost on her,” Ren said as they drove back, the night air crisp around them. Hux smiled, having particularly enjoyed the ending where the girl had gotten her revenge on the asshole father, burying him in the grave he’d meant for her.

“You want any food before I drop you at yours?” Hux asked.

“Not really a proper date unless you take me out to eat, too,” Ren joked. “So yeah. Stop me at McDonald’s off this exit.”

“Is this really a date?” Hux asked, pulling off the highway. Ren shrugged.

“It is if you want it to be.”

“Hmm.” Hux didn’t care for that answer. He couldn’t say one that he would have preferred, but definitely anything besides that. He felt helpless when Ren didn’t express any interest, as if he should take his affection elsewhere. Pulling into the drive-thru, he barely heard what Ren ordered, just pulled up to pay. At the second window, the lady handed them a big box of chicken nuggets and two sweet teas.

“Here you go,” Ren said, putting a straw in Hux’s drink and setting it in the car’s cupholder. “Hummingbird food.”

“Ha,” Hux smiled vaguely at his memory this morning of filling the feeders. This morning. A sinking feeling made him grit his teeth as he pulled out of the parking lot and went to go back to the highway. He felt like he should confess, felt guilty at having watched Ren not once, but twice without his permission. Three times if you count the glance up at the window when he was taking off his shirt for the date.

“Pull a left here,” Ren said.

“Why? Your house is that way.”

“Date’s not over yet,” Ren said, already pulling out a couple of chicken nuggets to wolf down. Hux sighed, pulling a u-turn to go where Ren had asked. They moved further away from the city, out into winding roads and forested areas. Ren seemed to know exactly where they were, directing Hux at each little intersection they came to until finally he gestured to a gravel parking lot with one hand.

“Park?” Hux asked. Ren nodded, taking a long gulp of sweet tea before getting out and closing the car door. Hux paused, his heart racing. What was he doing? Should he text Avalyn? Had Ren already done so? He got out of the car, slamming the door a bit too harshly in order to shut out the thoughts as well. Ren was standing in the moonlight, looking out down a hill illuminated blue-green by the full moon in the sky.

“I went to this church with my mom a few times,” Ren said when Hux walked over to join him. “I liked it because of the playground down there, and the baseball field.” He looked up, and Hux pretended not to notice how hesitant Ren’s expression was. Ren took a step forward, one hand on Hux’s waist and one hand moving to his neck, and he kissed Hux with a slow sweetness that threatened to collapse Hux’s lungs. He clung to the man, his arms at Ren’s shoulders and his hands in Ren’s hair.

This kiss was separate from the one they'd shared in the theater, sadder and younger somehow. Ren’s tongue tasted less like salt and desire, more like sweet sugar swimming on a wave of black tea and tears. Hux pulled away when Ren’s lip quivered, knowing somehow that Ren had used the kiss to gear up for what he had to say next.

Looking out over the field before them, seeing cars in the far distance streaking red brake lights along the night roads, Ren sighed.

“I don’t deserve a second chance.”

Hux looked over in shock, his brow furrowed. He’d had this same thought, the day of the funeral, when he couldn’t make himself go look at Ingram’s body. Hux had told himself that he didn’t deserve a second chance to say goodbye when his pride had made him leave the first time. He’d told himself that he deserved to suffer. Had Ren been telling himself the same thing?

“A second chance at what?” Hux asked. Ren shook his head.

“At you,” Ren said, looking over with a laugh, as if Hux were stupid. Hux turned to the field, then to the sky. The stars were bright and visible, even with the full moon.

“Here,” Hux motioned to his car’s hood. “Lay up here with me.”

“You sure? What if I dent your hood?” Ren smirked, self-deprecating and distracted.

“I don’t care,” Hux said. And in the moment he truly didn’t. He and Ren sat on the hood, sliding at first when they tried to lay back, eventually moving as one to where their backs were flat against the hood and their eyes were turned up to the stars. Hux sighed, reaching over to grab Ren’s hand in his. “I have something to say.”

“Say it.”

“I was over at your house this morning.” Hux winced, worried about how it would sound.

“Oh yeah. I know.”

“You…” Hux paused, frowning at the stars. “You know?”

“Yeah. When I was tracing your palm in the theater, I felt the scrapes. I heard someone high-tailing it this morning so I just put two and two together.”

“Fuck,” Hux shook his head, embarassed beyond even blushing. Ren laughed.

“Did you like what you saw?”

“How can you be so blasee about this?” Hux asked, turning to stare at Ren over his shoulder.

“I don’t know.” Ren shrugged, not looking at Hux. “I don’t normally get any visitors out here. I like knowing you were looking at me, in a way. It meant you were around to look.” 

Hux thought about saying that he had looked that evening too, but the shame he felt was still a bit too stinging and sharp for the words to make it past his lips. Ren laughed at the situation again, a small chuckle that sent a puff of warm breath into the air above them, and tightened his grip on Hux’s hand.

“Doesn’t hurt anymore, does it?”

For a second, Hux wondered what Ren was talking about, his hand or their close proximity.

“No,” Hux lied. It still stung his palm to have Ren hold his hand like this, like he had in the theater, but it was a good pain. If it came from Ren, Hux could take it. As if he knew Hux wasn’t telling the truth, Ren loosened his grip just slightly on the redhead’s fingers. They stayed like that for a while, silent in their mutual contemplation, until Hux was certain Ren had fallen asleep based on his content, even breathing. 

He glanced over, saw Ren’s eyes shut gently as if he were faking. Such a light sleeper. If Hux jostled him at all, he’d wake up in an instant. Hux smiled, brought Ren’s knuckles up to his lips slowly, carefully. He kissed each one in turn, then set Ren’s hand on his chest. For a moment, Hux was worried that his heart would beat so loud and so fast that it would wake his ex. Glancing over, however, showed Ren was still snoozing.

Hux turned his eyes back to the stars, thought about their first date. Ren had been interesting, powerful and moody even when he was happy. Hux thought about how Ren had lain on him in the back of the truck, looking up at the stars with a semi-hardon as they talked about their dreams. He thought about Ingram, at how the talks with Ren must have gone, about how different they would have been. Ren would have probably been honest, not afraid to hurt the kid’s feelings: Hux shuddered at the thought. Ren would have treated Ing right, though, been more of a brother to him than Hux had ever been. His eyes stung, then, tears coming gently. Hux sighed, angry with himself. He had been crying, been thinking about useless scenarios, more often in the past week than he had in his entire life. He sniffed hard, stirring Kylo beside him.

“Hmm?” Ren asked, turning to Hux. Hux gave a small, huffing laugh.

“Let me take you home.”

“We could stay, if you want,” Ren said, stretching. “Live out as wild men under the stars, with nothing but jungle gyms and a distant, vengeful god to tell us no.”

Hux laughed.

“I’d rather we stay at your place, if it’s okay.”

“You know I only have one bed, right?” Ren asked, tilting his head. Hux bit his lip, nodded. Ren’s expression changed. Amusement shifted into concern. “Are you sure?”

“I meant what I said in the theater,” Hux said firmly. “I miss you. I want you to take me back so I can fall asleep with you, if it’s okay.” Hux raised an eyebrow, giving Ren the option to say no. Hux needed this, he realized, needed it more than he could admit out loud, but it would mean nothing if Ren didn't want it with the same desperation.  Ren nodded slowly, seemingly in shock at the honesty of the statement Hux had given up so quickly.

Relief washed over Hux, almost as cold as the nighttime forest air surrounding them. They slid from the roof of the car, and as Hux was getting into the driver’s side, he turned to look at Ren with a pointed glare. “I’ve decided this was a date, by the way,” he added.

“It’s been a damn good one so far,” Ren smirked, opening the passenger door with one hand while running the other through his black curls. “I can’t wait to see how it ends.”

* * *

 

“So, I might take a quick shower, if you’re alright with that,” Ren said as he tossed his keys on the counter. The room smelled faintly of cedar, pine, smoke, and spice. Hux felt drunk, nodding while suppressing a flush of pleasure.

“Feel free.”

“Remote’s by the TV, there’s snacks in the fridge.” Ren paused, taking off his coat and hanging it by the door. “Noticed you didn’t eat anything at dinner.”

“I don’t care for fast food,” Hux said, shedding his own outer layer.

“Make sure you eat something if you’re hungry,” Ren said, nodding like he expected that answer. “You’re looking a bit thin.”

“Thanks Mom,” Hux smirked, throwing his coat at Ren instead of hanging it up. Ren caught it easily, hanging it on the rack beside his own, as if Hux’s clothes had always had a space there. Or maybe Hux was projecting. Without a word, Ren moved to the bathroom. Hux refused to look in that direction until he heard the door close, and then he let out a shaky breath and pulled out his cell phone.

“Hello?” Avalyn answered cheerily, her voice far away as if she had him on speaker.

“Hey Bo,” Hux said.

“Hey! How was the movie!”

“Good. I think…” The sound of the shower starting in the next room made Hux flinch. He was nervous, jumpy. He took a deep breath. “I think I’m going to stay at Ben’s tonight.”

“Really?” Avalyn paused, a scrambling sound. When she next spoke, she was closer, as if she’d paused whatever she was doing to pick up the phone and bring it closer. “Are you sure?” He was quiet, trying to find the words to explain. “Duke?”

“Yeah. It’s been… nice. Y’know?”

“Thank goodness. I was hoping he’d help,” Ava said with a chuckle. “But I didn't know if he'd make things worse.”

“You did good, asking him to come by. He makes me feel like I’m home,” he said before he could stop himself. He didn’t want Avalyn to feel like she didn’t, but it was different. With her, he saw the softness of his brother. With Ren, there were sharp edges that belonged to Hux alone. To his immense relief, she just chuckled.

“You two are an interesting pair, for fucking sure.” She paused again, hesitating an awful lot. Hux felt a stab of guilt, as if he had interrupted something she was enjoying to paint her night with worry. He wondered what it had been. Cooking? Driving? Watching a romantic comedy with some of the chocolate chess pie she’d found in the fridge? “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, Mercer, but-”

“Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing,” Hux interrupted. It was a lie, but it felt like only half of one. That was worth something, right?

“I believe you,” Avalyn fibbed as well, making Hux roll his eyes. “I just want to make sure you… y’know…”

“Whatever you’re gonna say, just spit it out.”

“I just want to make sure you deal with Ingram’s death in a productive way. Not a harmful one.”

Hux stopped, turning to look out the window to the limestone beyond the forest. He wondered if it had been in disuse since he’d left. He wondered if it had filled with rainwater, if he could swim in it. There was a strange pull at his core, an unchecked yearning to go look out across the abcess in the earth. Maybe he could find out tomorrow, after waking up with Ren, what it looked like nowadays.

“Mercer.”

“I’m still here.”

“Say something, please,” Ava begged.

“I don’t know how to deal with Ingram being gone,” Hux said quietly, sinking onto the edge of the bed. He ran his hand through his hair, fluffing his bangs. “Even less so how to do it in a healthy way.” He sighed deeply, hating how he felt so cold inside. It was warm in Ren’s apartment, warm and spiced as if Ren had made cinnamon-apple tea before Hux had surprised him for their date. “But, Ava, right now R- Ben’s anything but harmful for me. He knows who I really am, and when he looks at me I just-” Hux’s voice caught in his throat.

How could he tell her? He’d never told anyone how they’d ended, about Ren’s betrayal and his accusations; Hux had just left and never come back. Hux had cut him out, tried to forget him, blacked out the man in his memory as best he could. But he’d never forgotten how Ren had inadvertently saved him. He’d saved Hux from his father, from a life of service, from his fears. And coming back to Allenstand was one thing, but coming back to find Ren still there, still functioning, still seemingly in love with Hux… 

“Mercer?”

“Yeah,” Hux laughed, caught up in a whirlwind of confusion. “Still here. I guess I’m still in my head. Sorry.” His eyes caught a flash of green hanging by the door. A stupid rhinestoned H he’d given Kylo when he’d worked at the grocery store glinted at him in the dim light. A high school momento, one he thought Ren would’ve thrown out. It had been a birthday present, because Hux hadn’t been able to afford anything else at that point. Ren had kept it, all these years, dangling by the plastic cherry-pink lanyard and the point card to the local gas station. He chuckled. “I’m trying to join y’all in the real world, but I keep finding myself distracted.”

“It’s okay. You do what you need to. Just,” Avalyn sighed heavily, and Hux prepared for her unsolicited advice. “Just make sure that you remember he’s hurting too, okay? Be careful with him, for his sake.”

Hux gave a small laugh, because otherwise the pain of that statement would threaten to bring him to tears once more. He had cried enough. He nodded, forgetting that Ava couldn’t see him.

“I’ll remember.”

“See you tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I ask one question, before you go?” Avalyn asked.

“That’s one question, you’re done,” Hux chuckled.

“Don’t test me, Duke,” she said, and he could hear her smile from across the town. She cleared her throat, and blurted before she could stop herself, “Did you ever stop loving Ben Solo?”

“I…” Hux tilted his head, thinking as he stared down at his feet. “I’ve never thought about it, actually.”

“Maybe it’s worth thinking about tonight, then.” Avalyn sighed again, then resumed her cheery chattering from before. “Well, alright, I’ll let you go. I’m sure you’ve got a busy night ahead of you.”

“Stop that.”

“Come by tomorrow and I’ll make you and your boyfriend breakfast.”

Hux didn’t bother correcting her on the term, he just hung up. He hung his head in his hands, and practically jumped out of his skin when he felt a cool touch on his shoulder.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Hux cursed, vaulting to his feet and turning to face Ren. He was shirtless, a towel around his waist, his expression shocked and apologetic.

“I’m sorry! I thought you heard me walk up.”

“No. For fuck's sake,” Hux exhaled hard, trying to calm down. “How long have you been standing there?”

Ren looked uncomfortable, shy almost. He shrugged, and Hux struggled to keep his eyes on Ren’s instead of letting them wander further south. His eyes downcast, Ren mumbled, “A while.”

“What did you hear?” Hux asked, hiding the concern from his voice. Ren swallowed, didnt say anything. “Kylo,” Hux pried. That seemed to do it, because Ren cleared his throat in reply.

“When I look at you, you just. Then you cut off.”

Hux felt a forceful breath knocked from him, embarrassed and taken aback. He tried to look angry, tried to assume an expression so that Ren would stay rooted to the spot he was standing at, so that he wouldn’t come closer and destroy the last bit of self-control Hux was clinging to.

“I didn’t know you were listening,” Hux replied.

“Can you finish what you were going to say?” Ren asked, looking up finally. Hux felt his heart skip a beat. Ren’s eyes were bright, wide, his lips parted and his cheeks flushed. He was struggling, he was hurting. Hux said he’d remember that, had promised his sister he wouldn’t be essentially using his ex for one-sided comfort. But if they comforted each other, then maybe this would work out. Maybe they could heal.

“When you look at me,” Hux said, straightening his shoulders and lifting his chin defiantly, a juxtaposition of indifferent posture to counteract the tenderness in his voice. “I feel like I never want to leave. I feel like starting over. I feel,” he swallowed hard, “like I want to stay.”

“With me?” Ren asked, his voice small. Was that fear? Hux smiled, somehow perversely reassured by the fact that this confident, sarcastic asshole before him might be just as confused as he was. Ren tilted his head. “You sure? I mean, after everything.”

“Of course, you idiot,” Hux said fondly. “Even after everything.” Ren narrowed his eyes a bit, then strode closer, bridging the gap between them with two steps. Hux wanted to reach for him, to feel the cold dampness of Ren’s skin fresh from the shower. He stoically kept his hands at his side, his knuckles white from clenching them into fists.

“I’m stopping this now, before we get hurt again,” Ren whispered, his lip trembling. “You can’t.”

“Can’t stay?” Hux asked, frowning. Ren bit his lip, lowering his gaze to Hux’s scowl. After a moment, he nodded. Hux scoffed. “Why the hell not?”

“There are things about me, about us, that we haven’t talked about. And we need to, before this goes any further.”

“I know.” Hux paused, astonished to see that Ren’s eyes were glossed with unshed tears. “We can talk about them soon. Like tomorrow morning. I promise.”

“No, Hux. If you stay, you need to know-”

Before Ren could finish his thought, Hux leaned up and kissed him. His hands found Ren’s nape, pulling him closer. Hux pressed his body against Ren’s, satisfied when his ex’s hands found his waist, gripping hard as if he couldn’t help himself and was resenting it completely. Hux licked at his mouth, drawing him deeper, desperate to silence the hesitation within. Ren was crying against him now, moans drawing Hux further into darkness as Ren’s tears kissed Hux’s cheeks.

“Hux please,” Ren begged, his hands clawing at Hux’s back and keeping him flush against Ren’s body. “I want-”

“You're alright,” Hux whispered, moving his hands to Ren’s hips and forcing the towel down to the floor. “You’re alright, I’ve got you.” Ren gasped, then moaned at the sensation of Hux drawing himself completely against his length while fully clothed. Ren’s hands made fists in Hux’s shirt as he took a knee, but instead of stopping Hux they seemed to press him down faster.

Hux trailed kisses down Ren’s abdomen, tracing looping circles along his ribs leading in a curve down to his hips. Hux nuzzled Ren’s thighs with his cheek, inhaling deeply, kissing at the crease where his legs met his torso. Ren’s hands moved to Hux’s hair, smoothing his bangs out of his face. He was still crying, sniffling lightly as Hux worshipped him.

“Lie down on the bed for me,” Hux said into the triangle of dark curls between Ren’s legs. Ren’s cock twitched in answer, already completely stiff and standing at attention against Hux’s cheek. Ren obeyed, falling back onto the bed and scooting backwards so that his head was resting on the pillows by the headboard. Hux followed, kneeling by Ren’s calves. The man before him tensed, the words he was desperate to say still right at the edge of his lips.

“Hux, I’m so sorry,” Ren whispered.

“Hush,” Hux ordered gently.

“I need you to know,” Ren begged, his words morphing into a keening cry when Hux curled up between his legs on the bed and drew Ren’s cock into his mouth in a long, slow swallow. Hux took him in deeply. The sensation was intimidating, his lips stretching wide over Ren’s shaft. He’d forgotten how big Ren was, forgotten the best angle to take him in with. He gagged, coughing a bit, and pulled off. Ren looked torn between trying to talk again and pushing Hux’s mouth back to his aching cock. Hux knew he wouldn’t decide, so he decided for Ren and spoke up.

“I’m sorry, too,” Hux said, turning his head to the side and running his lips up and down Ren’s shaft. Ren covered his eyes with one arm, stifling a sound that seemed close to a sob. “Stop that,” Hux said firmly, raising up on his elbows to drag himself flush along Ren’s naked body. He kissed into the hollow of Ren’s neck, nudging his arm away from his face to get close. “Stop crying, please.” Ren sniffled, and Hux caught one of his tears with his tongue. “I’m not trying to hurt you, I promise.”

“You think you’ll hurt  _ me _ ?” Ren scoffed, laughing through the tears. Before Hux could react, Ren’s arms were encircling his shoulders, bringing him close in a tight embrace. Hux sought Ren’s lips, desperate to show him how much Ren made him feel, unable to find the words. Ren returned his kisses, his hands roving over Hux’s back, over his clothes as if he found himself unworthy of touching Hux’s bare skin. Hux resituated himself, straddling Ren, never breaking the contact between their lips. After a moment, he pulled away for a minute to adjust his pants. His erection was digging painfully into his zipper, and Ren’s was leaking precome all over his jeans. Hux sat up fully, and Ren followed as if he were magnetized to go where Hux did, to occupy his space. He traced his large palms down Hux’s shoulders, pulling his arms forward, forcing them to wrap around Ren’s back. Hux sighed, nuzzling into Ren’s temple when his ex pressed his face into Hux’s clavicle.

“We can stop if you want,” Hux said, meaning every word.

“No,” Ren shook his head, his arms tightening around Hux’s middle. “Don’t stop. Whatever you want tonight, we’ll do it.”

“I want to know what you like,” Hux whispered, feeling more vulnerable than his counterpart even though he wasn’t the one who was naked. Ren seemed to tense in his arms, but Hux held fast. “I want you to tell me what makes you feel good. I’m going to give it to you, exactly how you want.”

“Hux, what I said before, about you never knowing-”

“I don’t resent you,” Hux said, then pulled Ren away from his neck by yanking very gently on his black curls. “I want to do this. Now tell me what you want.”

“I…” Ren flushed. He paused, sniffling, looking away, uncomfortable underneath of Hux’s demanding stare. Hux brought his other hand to Ren’s lower back, holding his hips still. Hux began to rock, gently grinding his denim on Ren’s rigid cock. The man gasped, a tiny noise that made Hux feel as though Ren could make him come without ever touching him. “I want to suck on you,” Ren whispered finally, sending a trill through Hux’s every fiber of being.

“How do you want me?” Hux asked, moving his hand from the small of Ren’s back to where he could graze his thumb across the head of his leaking shaft. Ren cried out, sensitive and desperate.

“Kneel. Make me get on my stomach. Feed it to me.”

“You feel like groveling for it?” Hux asked, needing full consent before this went further. He was not going to add to their broken shards, would not keep them cutting each other while trying futilely to gather themselves together. “You feel like begging?”

“Yes,” Ren moaned, his eyes closed and his face red and tear-stained. “I need it.”

“Get down then,” Hux said, breathless. He didn’t know why, but the powerful urge to dole out just the punishment Ren needed was refreshing. It held potential, like untarnished ice in a block they needed to chip away at. Ren wiggled out from underneath of Hux’s hips, repositioning himself on the bed, curved so that his belly was flush with the sheets. He looked up at Hux, then, his eyes wide and his lips parted.

“Open,” Hux ordered. Ren obeyed, and Hux felt a shiver of pleasure stab into his spine, sending sparks to his hips and chest. He forced himself to slowly take his zipper in one hand, ubuttoning his jeans deftly with the other. Holding the denim open, he slid the metal teeth open while watching Ren’s lower lip tremble in anticipation.

“Pull me free,” Hux said, reaching forward so that he could pull a lock of hair behind Ren’s ear. His other hand he rested on his own lower back, keeping his hips forward.

Ren hooked his fingers in Hux’s boxers, slowly unwrapping him until Hux’s erection was right before his nose. He sighed, and Hux shivered at Ren’s warm breath on the head of his cock.

“Good boy,” Hux whispered. It felt silly, something he’d never said before, but Ren’s reaction was so immediate that he cursed himself for not having thought to say it sooner. Ren’s eyes glazed over, his hips bucked on the sheets, and Hux watched Ren’s fists clench on the bed by Hux’s knees. “Oh, fuck,” Hux laughed. “You like that.” Ren frowned, refusing to meet Hux’s gaze. “Don’t you dare pout. Open up.”

Hux brushed Ren’s hair out of his face then led his mouth forward. One hand holding the base of his own cock in a vicegrip, the other hand tracing a line to force Ren’s lips apart, Hux slowly moved forward.

The sensation of Ren’s tongue on his slit made Hux have to retreat and regroup. He tugged Ren’s hair hard, holding enough of it that the pain wouldn’t be sharp enough to pull Ren out of the fantasy. “You don’t lick until I tell you to, got it?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?” Hux demanded, unsure of what he wanted as an answer. Ren moaned, his hips grinding once more against the sheets. Hux contemplated ordering Ren to jerk off while he watched, filed that for later.

“Yes, sir,” Ren whispered, opening his mouth again without prompting. Hux softened his grip on Ren’s locks, petting him almost, encouraging him.

“That’s more like it.” Hux moved forward quicker this time, filling Ren’s mouth with his cock. Ren moaned against him, the humming sensation driving Hux mad, forcing Hux’s hips to buck further than he intended. Ren took him in, his throat opening for Hux’s dick, his gag reflex suppressed. Hux remembered that about him, when they had first tried to sixty-nine. Hux had been unable to handle the bottom position, but Kylo had always been amazing at controlling his breathing and swallowing, swallowing, swallowing.

Hux cried out, fucking Ren’s mouth harder now, his hand in Ren’s hair gentle and holding him in place. He found words welling up, desperate orders that hardly felt like they came from his own mind.

“Grind harder on those fucking sheets,” Hux growled, Ren’s moans escaping through his nose. “If you behave, I’ll let you touch yourself. Would you like that?” A desperate sound, confirmation. “Use your hands on me. Show me how bad you want it.” Immediately, Ren’s hands moved forward. One gripped Hux’s thigh to help steady himself, the other moved to Hux’s balls to gently massage and trail his perineum. Hux was blind from pleasure, but still somehow was holding off on his orgasm. He thought vaguely to himself that he should feel pride, but it was hard to feel anything at all with Ren’s throat sucking him in so far, so deep, so wet.

“You’re so good, Kylo, so fucking good. Let me watch you press your cock into the bed, show me how bad you want to be touched,” Hux urged. He realized suddenly that he would not be able to finish unless Ren did, a stark thought that washed him with cool relief. That would be fine. He could deal with that.

“Hux,” Ren pulled free, gasping in a long breath. Hux realized he had held Ren’s head down hard on his shaft, had choked him too hard.

“I'm sorry. Fuck, are you alright?” Hux asked, and Ren chuckled.

“Do it again. Please, sir,” he begged, taking Hux’s cock in deep without Hux ever having to move the hand holding Ren’s hair. Hux arched his back, his hips moving without his permission. He fucked Ren’s throat hard, punishing him, giving him what he asked for. Ren’s hands worked him, brought him to the edge, brought him down again. Hux was lost, completely undone. He forced himself to look back down, to stare at Kylo’s hips as he ground trails of precome across the sheets. He was so hard, the veins of his cock visible in the faint yellow glow of the kitchen light.

“You’re such a good boy,” Hux assured him, illiciting a low whine from Ren. “Turn over on your back. I’m going to fuck your mouth while you’re laying down.” Ren stared up at him, and Hux pulled his dick free from Ren’s lips with a delicious pop. “I want you to jerk off so I can see. Touch yourself. Show me how you like it.”

“Hux,” Ren groaned, his face eager and broken. Hux swiped away tears that had collected in the corner of his ex’s eyes, then leaned down on a whim and kissed him, licking up the taste of his own precome at the back of Ren’s mouth. Ren moaned against him, his teeth tracing nips along Hux’s mouth, his hands reaching up to hold Hux’s face as if he could barely understand that this was real, this was happening. Hux broke their kiss, quickly grabbing Kylo by the shoulder and forcing him down onto his back.

“Open.”

Ren obeyed, arching his back slightly in order to better swallow Hux from that angle. Hux watched, barely holding himself together, as both of Kylo’s hands moved to cover his cock. One began to stroke the shaft with loose fingers, and the other gently pinched at the head, the thumb of that hand working over the leaking slit. Hux put his own hand underneath of Ren’s chin, feeling Ren’s throat fill as he began to slowly fuck it, matching the pace of Kylo’s fingers on himself. His other hand he used to steady himself, to keep the rhythm slow, on the small of his own back. He listened to Ren's breathing, keeping time with each stroke.

Eventually, Ren figured out that Hux was not going to speed up until Ren himself did. His hand started to work faster, firmer. He dropped his other hand to the base, holding his cock taut and pointed slightly towards his thighs. Hux could barely breathe, but found the strength somehow to whisper praise.

“I love watching you jerk off,” he whispered, his pace in Ren’s throat speeding up as Ren’s hand moved quicker on his own cock. Hux kept his strokes shallow, making sure Ren could still breathe normally, relishing the feeling of Ren’s moans against his inner thigh. “You’re so beautiful, you know that? So precious.” Ren’s hips lifted as if on their own, his voice starting to leak through with every grunt he made against Hux’s cock. Hux leaned forward, tracing his hands down Kylo’s chest, down his stomach, his hips still bucking against Ren’s lips. He wouldn’t go too deep, not yet, he was still in control. Ren was almost there. If he could hold on a little longer, just a little longer, it would be worth his while. Hux moaned aloud at the gentle sensation of Ren’s teeth on his shaft momentarily.

Hux couldn’t hold back. He moved his hands to either side of Ren’s hips, then bent his elbows so that he could wrap his lips around the head of Ren’s cock. Ren shouted, surprised, then it was a blur of pleasure. Ren’s hand found Hux’s neck, forced him down just enough that Ren could fuck up into his mouth as Hux deepened his own strokes in Ren’s throat. Ren’s hand was still moving, his knuckles bumping frantically into Hux’s lips as he came. Their shouts mingled, and they swallowed their cries just as the other crescendoed in pleasure. Hux felt light headed, lost all sense of time and space, and with one last thrust he came hard into Ren’s throat. He pulled away as Ren still rode out his own orgasm, his large hands still working fast as the pleasure continued to crash over him. Hux buried his face his Ren’s stomach, holding his torso with two hands as he fucked slowly into Ren’s mouth until the last shred of pleasure faded from his hips.

Rolling to the side, Ren let him free with a gasp. They caught their breath together, two heavy bodies smelling of sex and cinnamon, and neither one moved to disentangle from the other. After a moment, Hux curved his body so that his head was against Ren’s stomach; from here, he could reach down and trace his fingers through Ren’s hair.

“You did so fucking well,” Hux whispered.

“Goddamn,” was the only thing Ren mumbled in response. Hux watched him for a minute, illuminated from the soft glow of the light over the stove behind him, and felt a pull at his chest.

“I should never have left you,” he breathed, more to himself than to Ren. The sound of it aloud brought them both back to reality. Ren’s eyes opened, searching, disbelieving. Hux refused to break the eye contact, had to show Ren he meant it. After a moment, Ren moved to rest his head on Hux’s thigh and his hand on Hux’s hip. He caressed Hux’s skin just above the denim, moving slowly, thinking.

“You might not think that in the morning,” Ren breathed. Hux frowned slightly, feeling cold. Ren smiled up at him, a sadness that Hux couldn’t read written there. Hux sat up, curving so that he was cradling Ren’s head in his lap. He looked down at him, smoothing his bangs out of his face. Whatever this man did, whatever he was punishing himself for, it wasn’t anything Hux cared about.

“Don’t underestimate me,” Hux warned, drawing his fingertips from each of Kylo’s moles as if writing out constellations on a map to commit to memory. “Whatever you have to say to me in the morning doesn’t have the power to change how I feel about you.”

“Fuck,” Ren whispered, closing his eyes and nuzzling into his stomach. “I hope you’re right.”

Hux curled around him, Ren repositioning so that he could wrap his arms around Hux’s waist. He slid his hands beneath Hux’s shirt, his palms pressing tight onto Hux’s skin as if Kylo wished he could leave imprints there. They stayed that way until Hux’s leg fell asleep, and that was the cue for Ren to move into the kitchen and turn the stove light off while Hux undressed. Plunged into darkness, they slipped underneath of the sheets that smelled like a long-forgotten autumn, and just held each other, breathing in the other’s naked presence as if the losses they’d experienced were forgettable and small.

After a few minutes of calm breathing, they dozed. It was fitful sleep for them both, one or the other waking up in the night over and over again, finding their silhouettes still together in the darkness, the two of them illuminated by the moon peeping in at them from above the all but abandoned quarry. Morning would come soon; it would chase away the blue filter of the night, replacing it with yellow honeysuckles and pale green leaf bellies, under which it would be harder to hide and convince each other they were enough.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *** this entire chapter is related to Ingram's death ***

Hux woke up abruptly, his phone ringing harsh into the early morning hours. It was just past dawn, the oranges and pinks stretching tentative fingers across the greens of the forest around them. The colors bled into the studio, making Hux wonder for a moment if he were still dreaming. He picked up his phone with heavy fingers as Ren rolled over onto his other side, immediately awake.

“Hello?”

There was a tiny noise, a half-sob let loose, and Hux was immediately on his feet putting his clothes on. Ren was sitting up, rubbing his eyes as he watched Hux enter crisis mode.

“Mercer,” Avalyn said, her voice low in an attempt to keep it steady. “I need you to come home. Now.”

“I’m on my way,” Hux confirmed. There was no time to ask what had happened. There were only a few possibilities, in his mind. Either his father had gotten arrested for drunken disorderly conduct, which wasn’t unheard of, or his mother had self-harmed and was in the hospital. Either way, it fell to Avalyn to be the responsible one, and she needed her little brother there. He had to go.

“What’s wrong?” Ren asked, standing and pulling on clothes as Hux tried not to trip shoving his leg into his jeans. There were some stains on the hip, and he strode over to the sink to dab at them idly. As if it mattered. As if Avalyn would even notice.

“I don’t know. My sister called. I’m going to head over to her place.”

“Need me to drive separately?” Ren asked. Hux looked over at him, pausing in pulling his shirt up over his head to really look at the man in front of him. Ren wasn’t asking what happened, because it wouldn’t help even if he knew. He wasn’t even asking if Hux needed him to come with, just assumed his presence would be accepted. Hux found that incredibly endearing, in an assumptive sort of way. That was Ren, though, wasn’t it? Charming in the only way he knew how to be.

“Yeah, just in case, take your truck. It could be for the best, you never know,” Hux replied as he pulled his shirt on over his head. “Want me to wait for you to follow?”

“Her house is just down the road, I’ll be there directly after you,” Ren said. He motioned to the door. “Go, I’ll meet you in a second.”

Hux moved to step outside, but then as an afterthought he practically ran over to where Ren was still sitting on the bed. He grabbed the man’s face, one hand on either side of his jaw, and kissed his forehead. Ren’s hand found Hux’s wrist, thumb rubbing soothingly over Hux’s pulse as it had in the movie theater, and then Hux was gone with a quick grab of his jacket from where it hung by the door.

As he left the Organa limestone quarry, Hux lost control in a patch of gravel and swerved slightly into the ditch on the right side of the driveway. Honeysuckle blossoms burst fireworks of white pollen on his windshield as Hux corrected himself and drove safely from the dip in the gravel. He swiped their corpses away with the wipers, painting the glass in front of his face as the sky beyond Ren’s apartment showed signs of rain.

* * *

 

It took just a few minutes to drive over to his sister’s place, but the one stoplight that turned red on Hux still received a furious tongue-lashing. By the time Hux got to Avalyn’s house, he was a ball of tension, no solution to focus the pent-up energy on. He needed to know what happened, but needed to make sure Ava was okay first. He parked, slamming the stick shift into place, and ran from the car.

“Avalyn?” Hux called from the mudroom, trying to open the door. It was locked. She never locked it. “Avalyn, open up!” He banged on the door with fists harder than they needed to be, and he heard the lock slide back. The window in the center of the door barely allowed for a glimpse of her red hair, a shaking shoulder. She pulled the door open and Hux calmed himself, refusing to burst inside and scare her. He stood outside, watching, waiting. The sight of her made him feel as if he were still asleep, caught in some nightmare flashback of their childhood.

Avalyn was standing in her bathrobe, hiccuping. She’d obviously been crying hard. Her eyes were swollen, red-rimmed and bleary, and her lip was quivering even though Hux could see that she was biting it to keep it still. She was holding herself, her arms crossed over her chest, and huddled so that her full height was diminished by a few centimeters. Her pose, one of a frightened animal, was accented by the bright burst of red and purple erupting on her cheek by her left eye.

“Who did this to you?” Hux whispered, keeping his hands by his sides. She didn’t want to be touched, that much was clear from her posture, and he didn’t know what he would do if he could. Some insane part of himself wanted to press a fingertip onto the bruise, see if it hurt as bad as it looked like it did. He felt like crying, or fighting, he couldn’t decide which.

“Dad came over,” Avalyn whispered, and that was all she got out before dissolving into tears. Hux rushed forward, catching her as she crumpled, right as Ren pulled into the driveway outside of the mudroom.

“Let’s get you inside. Ren,” Hux called behind them as they walked into the kitchen, “I need you to come here and make us some tea.”

“Ava?” Ren called, slamming his car door, his voice small. Hux glanced over at him, shook his head a bit. Ren swallowed, as if he were deciding whether to be angry Hux were taking control of the situation or whether to obey him. Hux stared him down as he held onto his crying sister, almost glaring at him. He knew he hadn’t been there for Avalyn when he should have been, but he was here now. Wasn’t it enough? Would Ren let him have this? “Alright. I’ll put some water on,” Ren whispered, narrowing his eyes at Hux as he did so. Hux straightened, feeling out of place, feeling both young and old at the same time. Avalyn was clinging to him, shaking like a leaf in a storm.

“Alright, Bo, can you tell me what Father wanted?” Hux asked softly.

“I don’t know. I wish I knew, but like…” she shrugged in his arms, clearing her throat and sniffling. “He came over and was asking these things, such crazy things. He was so drunk, wanting Ing’s stuff back,” she sobbed into Hux’s shirt. Hux tried not to think of what it must smell like to her, thanked whatever god there was that she was congested from tears and probably oblivious. He found himself robotically petting her, smoothing her hair out over her shoulders, and tried to stay in the moment.

“Did you give him the stuff?”

“I did, but he said what he wanted wasn’t in there,” Ava sobbed. “I tried to talk to him but he was so fucking drunk.”

“It’s not even eight in the morning!”

“I know. He must have been up all night. God…”

“What did he do to you, Bo?” Hux asked softly as Ren filled the kettle with water from the sink. Hux pulled her slightly away from himself, his hands on her shoulders. “You need to tell me, so I can help.”

“He…” her eyes darted away, she was considering lying, but then her face folded and more tears came. Hux had no idea how someone could cry so much, so easily, so freely. Avalyn shuddered, and Hux reminded her to breathe. She nodded, sniffling. “He shoved me first, just against the wall there,” she pointed feebly, but Hux didn’t look because it didn’t matter. “We went upstairs, he was calm until he couldn’t find the thing he was looking for. He yelled. Got really upset. He started telling me it was my fault,” her voice rose into a high, shaky timbre as she cried. “Told me if I had stayed with Trevor I wouldn’t have fucked everything up. He said Ingram had everything, until I started distracting him. Like I distracted you.”

Hux stared, wide-eyed and shocked. These were things his father said to him, things his father blamed him for. Not Ava. Never Ava. At least, not that Hux was ever aware of.

“He told me that if I didn’t give him the thing he was looking for, he was going to get angrier.” Avalyn shook her head fiercely, rage flaring up behind her wet gray eyes. “But it wasn’t here, I mean I didn’t have any fucking clue where it was, so it wasn’t here! I looked through everything, so it wasn’t here!” She calmed, trying to breathe evenly, and Hux saw Ren trying to distract himself by choosing mugs from the lazy susan in Avalyn’s cupboard. “He didn’t believe me, and so she shoved me again upstairs, and then he started kicking me.”

“Did he get you in the face?” Hux asked quietly, gentling his touch since he had no idea where else she was hurt. She nodded. “Where else?”

“My stomach. My chest.” She shook her head. “The face was the worst one, I think it was the one that made him stop though.” She sighed heavily, her hand ghosting across the left side of her face. She winced. Hux moved her to the kitchen table, sat her down, and went to get a tiny sandwich bag from a drawer. As if anticipating what he was thinking, Ren grabbed a clean washcloth and handed it over to him. Hux opened the bag, filled it with ice, and gave the whole thing wrapped in the washcloth to Ava.

“Here, hold it against your cheek if you can. It’ll help the swelling.”

“Thank you, Duke,” Avalyn whispered. She hissed as she pressed the cold compress to her bruise, then seemed to relax. “You always know what to do.”

“Nonsense,” Hux said, smiling a bit. “You’d do the same for me.”

“I should have,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Hux asked, turning in irritation. She had nothing to apologize for, had been nothing but a strong support of him no matter how their father had gotten angry. He heard Ren leave the kitchen, giving them some semblance of privacy, to go to the living room.

“For never stopping him when he went after you. When we were little.” Avalyn was still crying, but was calmer now. Tears trickled from her eyes unbidden, her eyelashes catching the smaller ones and dangling them like flower petals in front of her irises. “For never stopping you, from taking it for us.”

“Don’t fret about it now. I don’t even remember.” Hux turned, feeling uncomfortable; his memory of their childhood had always contained dark patches of nothing followed by gray mist that reminded him of his mother’s eyes.

“You would hide Ingram. I remember.” Ava’s voice grew stronger, as if she were centering herself by pushing Hux off kilter. “Anytime Dad came home angry, drunk, you would hide Ingram. You would tell me to go check on him, and you’d take whatever Dad dished out-”

“I don’t remember, I said,” Hux repeated, his voice a bit louder now. Avalyn quieted at the noise, shuddering. “I’m sorry. I just… I must have blocked out some things.”

“I don’t blame you,” Ava whispered. “But I know that’s why Ingram blamed himself for you running away like you did.”

“He blamed himself?” Hux asked, furrowing his brow, not able to process all of these emotions at once. The kettle began to whistle, an alarm that echoed in his mind. His little brother had never mentioned this when they video-chatted, had never said more than just ‘I miss you’ to him. Why hadn’t he told Hux how he felt? Who had he told besides Avalyn?

The tea kettle hushed, and Hux turned to see Ren opening teabags for them all. He set one in each of the three mugs he’d gotten out, pouring hot water into each. The smell of cinnamon suffused the air, making Hux shake his head in distress.

“Ren,” Hux said sharply, not caring that Ava was nearby to hear his name. “What did Ingram talk to you about, when you talked?”

“I told you,” Ren said, a mask of emotionless neutrality smeared over his face. “Mainly he talked about you.”

“Did he blame himself for me running? For me not coming back?” Ren said nothing, and Hux moved over to him, put a hand on his arm. “Answer me.”

“We all did,” Avalyn said gently, taking an unstable breath deep into her lungs and exhaling it slowly. “In our own ways, we all thought that if we had been better, you would have been able to stay.”

“And you hid this from me? None of you fucking told me?” Hux turned, laughing because he didn’t know what else to do. He hardly believed it. “You all wallowed in guilt at my freedom. You were miserable because I wasn’t. Why couldn’t you have been happy that I got the fuck out? Hell, you all could have  _ followed _ me if you wanted to!”

“It wasn’t like that-”

“How could you let Ingram think that?” Hux asked, turning in a circle to address both of them. They didn’t say anything. “How could you let him talk like that to you? How could you blame yourself in front of him and then tell him he couldn’t do the same, you know how fucking influenced he was by people he loved.”

Speaking of him in the past tense made Hux feel ill, unsteady. He felt like how he had after the funeral, close to passing out, the tip of his nose numb. He focused on breathing in for a solid count of five seconds, then exhaling the same amount. It calmed him, just enough to look at Avalyn as she stared at the floor by her feet.

“You said our father was looking for something today. Can you give me anymore hints as to what it could be? As to why he was so upset?”

“No,” Avalyn shrugged. “For some reason, he seemed to think you’d taken it, something about his name, I don’t know, he was really drunk.” She was mumbling now, her jaw probably hurting something fierce. Hux moved to the medicine cabinet, rummaged until he found some aspirin, and dropped three into her palm.

“Ren, can you do me a favor?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“Make my sister some food. I’m going upstairs to see if I can’t figure out what Father was looking for.” Hux sighed at Ren’s nod, and asked, “Are you going to stay?”

“I’m not leaving until you tell me to leave,” Ren promised. Hux brought his hand to Ren’s shoulder, gripping it once, and then went upstairs alone as Ren took two mugs of cinnamon apple tea in his hands to bring over to the kitchen table.

* * *

 

Hux searched in Ingram’s stuff for over an hour, throwing around the notebooks and boxes that his drunk asshole of a father had already practically torn to shreds. He heard Avalyn and Ren talking downstairs, hushed voices. At one point they turned the television on, but they were still sitting in the kitchen. Hux assumed they didn’t want to be overheard, and it was fine by him. He was close to frustrated tears at not being able to find the thing his father was searching for, as if it held some deeper significance. As if he needed to make sure his father never got a hold of it.

After a while, he retreated into the guest bedroom, the smell of his brother’s old shirts and the sight of the dents in the wall where his sister had been thrown around making him feel naseuous. He searched through his bag until he found his sweatpants, the black ones he had worn yesterday. He pulled off his jeans, throwing them in the corner, and then tugged off his shirt. He replaced it with another tshirt, some plain black one with a circuitry design over the heart, and then pulled on the sweatpants.

He felt it against his hip, that weight, the one he’d guiltily kept from Avalyn before on the porch. Quickly, he tugged the envelope free of his pants, almost yanking them back down in the process, and sat on the edge of the bed. With shaky fingers, he pried open the envelope and turned it over into his palm. Out fell a pocketknife, engraved with stars and a crescent moon. Hux turned it over, feeling the heft of the cold metal in his palm. It wasn’t a large blade, and on the side opposite of the moon was the engraving, ‘Elijah Hux II’.

Hux was so absorbed in the knife that he hardly noticed when a letter fell from the envelope as well. It floated to the floor, settling its descent by Hux’s feet. He glanced down and picked it up, setting the envelope itself on the bed to do so. He opened the letter as if in a daze, feeling caught in a separate reality away from the childhood he’d known and the adulthood he’d created for himself.

_ Dear whoever this is, _

_ My name is Elijah Ingram Hux IV. I’m seventeen years old. The point of this letter is simple: I am going to kill myself on Sunday. I know that it will upset my sister. I know it will hurt my mother, but she’ll be fine as long as you watch her. My father will be angry. Good. I want him to feel that until he dies. _

This was not possible.

Hux read and reread that first paragraph, denial coursing through his veins. This had to be a prank. His brother would never do that, his brother would not be the type to throw his life away like that. He couldn’t. He wouldn't. He would never.

On the third read-through, Hux paused, something deep within him cracking at the lack of his name in the first paragraph. Avalyn was mentioned, their parents were mentioned. Nowhere did it say how Ingram thought Hux himself might react. He felt lost. He barely could absorb that this was a suicide note, no less one that was not including him in its goodbye. He pressed on as if he were reading a journal entry of a normal day in some other teenager’s life, someone other than the brother he’d loved so dearly.

_ You’re probably upset, too, reading this. Thinking I had options. I considered running away, but I saw what my father did to my brother when he ran away. My father  made sure he had nobody to come back to. It was a giant fuck-you to Mercer, to kill his chances at coming home. He even involved Ben Solo. I didn’t want anybody I loved to be hurt by me running away, or to be left behind for my father to use to hurt me. _

Hux put the letter down, trembling all over, not understanding. None of this made sense, none of this made any sense. He was gripping the pocketknife so hard that his knuckles hurt, and the pages were shaking so hard that he had to hold them with both hands to read them.

_ So instead of running physically, I’ll run away in a different sense. I’m miserable. I talk to Ben about it, and to Finn, and it helps. But they don’t know The Gray the way Mercer, Avalyn, and I know it. They don’t know the extent of ways my father can make you hate yourself, the ways my mother can make you think you deserve it. Everything loses its color, everything fades to nothing, and that’s where the three of us lived. The Gray. _

_ Did you know that my father has never once told me he was sorry, for anything? Random I know. I like writing this, though, it feels helpful somehow. Maybe they’ll understand how my father was, really, if they read this. _

_ My first memory of my father hitting Mercer was when I was five. I came home from school, I was hungry. I don’t know why, but Mom wasn’t home. It was me, Mercer, and Avalyn. Ava was doing homework, but I asked Mercer for a snack. He said I could have one string cheese, then I ignored him and I ate all seven in the fridge. That night, at dinner, I was too sick to eat. My father forced me to, telling me I was ungrateful and spoiled, so I ate the whole dinner and then went to throw it all up in the guest bathroom. _

_ Mercer got blamed, or he took the blame. I don’t remember that part. I just remember my mother pressing a cold washcloth to my forehead while my father shoved Mercer out of his chair onto the floor. That night, I wanted to say sorry to my brother, but I couldn’t. He wasn’t angry. That made it worse. Not even a week later, our dog died, and I saw how my father watched Mercer, testing to see if he could cry. When he did, my father sent him away. I knew, then, that my father liked hurting Mercer. At five years old, I knew. I still wonder if he didn’t kill our dog himself, just to see how Mercer would react. _

Hux put the pages down. He didn’t remember that, he didn’t remember taking blame or ever even thinking of being upset at Ingram for their father’s actions. Hux focused on the gentle fluttering of the baby-blue curtains in the corner, the fan overhead creaking, the mirror across the way hanging on the wall; he took it all in until he was calm enough to continue. There was an entire page left of Ingram’s final confession, and Hux was going to absorb it before he could grow even more afraid of the truth.

_ When I was twelve years old, Mercer ran away. He was only nineteen, and he called me every day. I know, because my father would wait by the phone to pick it up and drop it back into the receiver. I started to go over to Ben’s house, because Ben understood. I could call Mercer there, I could say hi. Every time he hung up, I cried, and I know Ben wanted to but he didn’t. That lasted about a year. _

_ When I was thirteen, Avalyn got married to this asshole named Trevor. It was a distraction, and I could call Mercer from Avalyn's house, until my father found out about Mercer and Ben. He was so angry when he found out from Ms. Organa that Mercer and Ben were dating. Homophobic piece of shit. Mercer would visit Ben sometimes after he ran away, but I could never sneak out to go see him, my father made sure of that. God it was a whole to-do in the neighborhood, my father would call Ms. Organa screaming at her over the phone about how she had ‘some nerve’ trying to ‘pollute the Hux name’. It was stupid. I have never been so embarrassed to be a Hux. _

_ I’m glad Ms. Organa never stopped them. I knew how good Ben was for Mercer. My father never saw how Ben would burn Mercer mix cd’s for his drive back from North Carolina to Maryland. He never saw that Ben sold his guitar to buy Mercer this dining set for his kitchen when he had no money for furniture. Ben started dreaming of bigger things when he was with Mercer. Trevor never did ANY of that for Avalyn. _

_ When Avalyn got divorced, it was like she had faked an injury to quit a sports team. My father was so disappointed in her. He stopped talking to her, would only talk through me or my mother when she visited. I found out through him that Avalyn was barren, and it’s why Trevor left her. I hated the way my father mentioned it. If you’re reading this and you aren’t Avalyn, don’t tell her I knew. If you are Avalyn, I knew and I’m sorry I didn’t have the guts to talk to you about it. I was ashamed that I listened to him talk about it at all. _

Hux swiped away a tear, prevented it from reaching the page below.

_ My father started to push me. I was thirteen when he made the deal with Ben Solo’s mother to hurt my brother. I won’t get into i, but my father ruined my brother’s happiness for the rest of his life, and was so giddy about it that he told me what he did. I tried to talk to Ben about it. Ben won’t let me. Even today, I tried to talk to him about it, and he told me to let it go, let him suffer. I know it’s not his fault, but that’s frustrating, and it is not his fault. _

He couldn’t process this, could not deal with this rambling. Hux refused to allow himself to re-read the paragraph, pushing on towards the next stage of hurt. It felt too graphic, reading his brother’s handwriting, his last memoir, his shortest account of their lives summed up in a few short paragraphs. It was like an autopsy of his brother’s soul, so garish and on display that it was almost not even real. Still, Hux read on.

_ I was fourteen when my father showed me how to drink for the first time. He said it was how men bonded. It didn’t make me feel manly. When I asked Ben about it, he said it was how cowards bonded. That seemed about the long and short of it. _

_ I was sixteen when I first fell in love and I thought maybe life wasn’t so bad. She didn’t love me back, but I think it’s better this way. She’s with Finn, and he treats her so well. I never told anyone. I would have told Mercer, I think he would have understood, but at this point he’s busy with work. He works so fucking hard, you know? He changed his whole life. He was never destined to stay here. _

_ This brings me to this year. On my birthday, my father gave me this pocket knife I’m enclosing in the envelope. He told me that I was the last hope for continuing the Hux bloodline. Our heritage, he called it. This knife was his father’s father’s knife, told me I would pass it to my sons. Said that it normally went to the oldest son, but that Mercer wasn’t ‘worth it’. He said that my grandfather taught him everything he knew, so he taught it to me, and I’d teach it to my sons. I looked at him, and I swear to god I wanted to feel so sorry for him. My father used to have twin siblings, they died when he was little. Car crash. I know, in a way, how his father must have taken that out on him. In that moment, when he was handing me the knife, I felt such clarity. I knew what I had to do. _

_ If the Hux bloodline is my legacy, I’m ending it here. I’m going to go out tonight, I’ve been planning it for a while. I told my friend Brent about it, he said he’ll go with me. I feel bad for his parents. They really don’t deserve to lose him too, but he made his choice. I won’t stop him from ending his own fucked up family tree either, if it’s what he wants. _

_ Me out of the picture takes care of it all. Avalyn can’t have Hux babies, and even though it hurts her it’s for the best. Dad will leave her alone now. Mercer could have some Huxes, technically, but I don’t think he ever wants children and my father thinks gay people can’t have their own children anyway- _

There was something scribbled out here, a messy bunch of handwriting that said something like ‘stupid asshole’ and something about ‘surrogacy’. Hux gave a small chuckle. Of course Ingram would have been irate about his right to have children if Hux so chose. That was who he was. He was always thinking of others. Never of himself. Guilt clawed at his chest, and Hux wondered if he would be able to feel anything at all after this, or if the guilt would scrape him into numbness.

_ Without me, the abuse stops. Without me, no more children will get this stupid fucking pocketknife and be told to be an abuser. I have the potential. When I get angry, I want to hurt people. It scares me. I don’t like that about myself, which is why I go to Avalyn. It’s why I go to Ben. Those guys, I am really going to miss. _

_ But this letter isn’t for them. Whoever you are, I need you to find my brother. His name is Mercer Armitage Hux, and he’s going to turn twenty-five this year in December. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland, and he’s a successful architect with his own company. I want you to give him this letter, and tell him to forgive me. He has to know that I did it out of my own free will. He has to know he had to get out. So help me god, if you don’t give him this, I will find a way from the afterlife to come back and make your life a living hell. _

Hux stopped to laugh again, the sound coming out like a sob. He sniffled wetly, struggling to read the last paragraph. He was almost there. Almost done. Like self-surgery, the pain was acute and he was almost done stitching up the wound but he had to get through the entire thing.

_ So Mercer, I hope you’re reading this. I don’t care if someone read it before you. That’s not what’s important. What you need to know is that this was a secret. It is going to look like an accident. I will not tell ANYBODY. So I bet they’ll call you home. I’m sorry for that. I really am. Stay strong here in this fucked up neighborhood. Don’t let Dad guilt you, he’s a liar. Don’t let Mom make you stay here, leave as soon as possible. Visit Avalyn if you can, her porch is really nice now. I helped paint it last summer. Like a preparation, you know? Sorry, that’s morbid. But I did, I hope you don’t find any patches I missed, that would be embarrassing. But really though, Mercer, as dramatic as this sounds, it's how it had to be. _

_ My last request is as follows: do not let our father have this fucking knife. I want you to take it with you to Maryland, and chuck it into the Chesapeake. I always wanted to visit you up there, I think that will be my only real regret. So do that for me, y’hear? _

_ Love, _

_ Ingram _

Putting down the pages was hard. Hux wanted to hold them up forever, to read his brother’s voice until he could practically hear it echoing in his own mind. It was too much. He felt tears coming, and he let go even more so than when he had crumbled onto the floor in Ren’s arms the other day. He sobbed into the pillow, drowning out the noise so that Ren wouldn't see him like this.

His brother was wrong. It was _not_ how it had to be, this option was the worst one he could've chosen. He had gotten rid of himself in a misguided effort to help others, and hadn't reached out. If he had, Ren would've stopped him. Avalyn would've stopped him. Hux would've stopped him. He grit his jaw hard, keeping back a scream. Helplessness was what had driven his brother to this, but it would not do the same for him. Hux pulled away from the pillow, looking at himself in the reflection of the window. It was faint. He was a ghost of himself, of Ingram. He wrapped both arms around himself and sighed, trying to calm down.

Hux wished more than anything he could undo this sense of clarity his brother had felt, that he could change that certainty with which is brother drove himself into the semi-truck, that he could have been here when Ingram had been conscious so that he could tell him to hang on. And maybe Ingram had, until he'd gotten to hear Hux's goodbye. The thought made Hux clench his hands harder on his biceps.

It should have been Hux, he thought to himself, and in a way it was. Each of the Hux children had died in their father’s eyes, all in turn, all one right after the other.

How did a family heal from that? How did life go on?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *** Hux finds a note from his younger brother that confesses it was a suicide, not an accident, that killed him. In no way is this meant to downplay the enormity of the situation, or the loss it leaves behind. This chapter is purely explanation via a letter Hux finds in Ingram's handwriting, addressed to him. If it hurts to read specifics, I'm sure the rest of the chapters can hint at it without telling you outright what happened. Take care loves ***


	9. Chapter 9

Hux didn’t know when he fell asleep, but he must have exhausted himself from crying and dozed off for a while on top of the blankets. He woke up clutching the pages of the letter to his chest, with the pocketknife in one fist. He sighed, his eyes bleary and swollen. He needed water.

He moved downstairs as if in a trance. The television was on, and both Ren and Avalyn were asleep in front of it. They looked like younger versions of themselves, despite the slight wrinkles he could see around Avalyn’s mouth from frowning, and the gray in Ren’s hair. Hux fingered the cold metal in his pocket, each step of his careful and quiet. If he woke Ren now, he wouldn’t know what to say. Best to let him sleep, to leave them alone the way they’d left him alone. Instead of sitting with them, Hux found his cell phone in the kitchen and stepped outside to make a call.

“Hello?” his mother answered.

“Mom. It’s Mercer,” Hux said quietly. His voice was rough, scratchy. He cleared it. “Is Father around?”

“I…” His mother hesitated. She wanted to ask him why, surely. She wanted to cover for his father, Hux would bet money on it.

“It’s not about what he did to Avalyn,” Hux said coldly, “although I’d be happy to repeat to you what he did to her if you’re interested.”

“You best respect your elders, boy,” his mother bit out. “Who told you that you could talk like that? Accusing your father of-”

“I know that you know. I don’t care. Pass me to Father. It’s urgent” Hux looked at the yard Avalyn had converted part of into a garden. It was small, filled with perennials, and he thought to himself that it looked like a garden someone would make if they had no idea how to care for something alive. As if someone had walked into the gardening section at the local Wal*Mart and asked for the top five plants most likely to survive on their own.

“He’s right here,” his mother whispered, passing over the phone without another word. For a minute, Hux thought his father might hang up. Elijah cleared his throat, his words slurred, and said hello. His mother hadn’t told him who it was, he could tell. Good. He was still drunk.

“Hello Father.”

“Goddamnit-” his father pulled the phone away, he heard a loud crash and the sound of his mother crying out. Hux winced, but would not be swayed into hanging up. A scramble of a palm against the receiver, then a huge sigh. “The fuck do you want?” Elijah asked.

“Just had a question for you, then I’ll be leaving again. That’s what you want, right?”

“Spit it out or hang up, I ain’t got time for your bullshit tiptoeing, boy,” his father drawled. So he was good and shitfaced, Hux noted. It would make this a little easier, if he could ask the right things.

“What deal did you make with Ben Solo’s mother?”

“Who?”

“Leia Organa, Ben Solo’s mother. The owner of the limestone quarry? What deal did you make with her about her son and me?”

“Oh,” Elijah laughed; it was a dark, brittle sound, like static over the radio. “That. Why don’t you ask your ex?” The way he said ex made Hux want to punch a wall.

“I’m askin’ you.” Hux grit his teeth against the accent that threatened to surge forth. “What did you do to Ben?”

“Do? I didn’t do shit. Hell, I fucking  _ improved _ their shithole lives. I offered his mother two thousand dollars, and she did the rest.”

“What was the two grand for? Why pay that kind of money?”

“They fucking needed it. I knew they needed it, so I provided it. And they did the rest.” Elijah clinked around, Hux could hear a pop of another cap, the hiss of carbonation. “Tell me,” Elijah belched. “You ditch the idea of sleeping with guys yet? Seeing as that Ben kid broke your heart and all?”

The last part Elijah sang out, as if it were a nursery rhyme he were reciting to a small child. Hux felt cold, his heart was beating too fast. He’d never told his father, never told anyone, how Ren and he had ended. He had never told anyone about how Ren had broken his heart, had never admitted to it. So who had told Elijah? How did he know?

This was not Ren’s fault, Ingram had said. Ren had referenced a deal in the corner store, had told the man behind the counter he was just the first one to accept the deal. Ingram had written that their parents had made sure Hux had nobody to come home to, no ties, no comfort. It began to snap into place, slowly but surely.

His father had paid Ms. Organa, Ren’s mother, to make Ren hurt him so that Hux would stop coming back, would stop being a reminder to Ingram that life could be what you made it. Avalyn, he’d told her that she was a distraction because she had gotten divorced and shown Ingram that he didn’t have to marry who their father approved of. Hux, he had been a disgrace because he’d fallen in love as a teenager with a backwoods limestone no-name kid and run away because of it. Hux had shown Ingram that he didn’t have to stay if he didn’t want to, that he could choose who to come home to and his father couldn’t do anything about it. And Elijah had needed to kill that.

So how had it gone down? That was the real question. Had Ren’s mother paid the hardware guy to fuck Ren like he was some cheap toy, or had Elijah? Had Ren’s mother even known that was part of the deal, or had Hux’s father spoken directly to Ren himself? Had they needed the money that badly? Had Elijah threatened their lives?

“Tell me you didn’t.”

“You’re right,” Elijah coughed, spat. “I didn’t do shit. You catch on quick for a fucking artist.”

“Tell me you didn’t pay Organa to sell out her son, tell me you didn’t make a deal to make sure I had nobody. Tell me, you fucking liar, so I can hear you admit it with your own mouth!”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. People in this town would rather fuck a sheep stuck in a fence than that no-good pill-dealing shithead you called a boyfriend.” Elijah laughed at his own joke, if it could even be called a joke. “Avalyn wasted her money springing him from jail. He shoulda stayed. It’s where he belongs.” A pause, a sip, then Elijah’s voice in an even lower timbre. “You don’t belong here either. You shamed us, coming back into town, dallying with that boy immediately again. You know that, right?”

“Is that why you never let me see Ingram? Because of ‘shame’?”

“I never let you see Ingram because he was better than you could  _ ever _ have been, and I was not about to let you or your sister fuck that up for me!” his father screamed, raging into the phone. He heard glass breaking, footsteps. “Ingram was our hope for a real family, instead of fucked-up delinquents like you! Like your boyfriend! Hell, even your sister’s a goddamn defective uterus with legs, how’s that for cruel irony!”

“How dare you!”

“You with her now?” Elijah asked, his breath coming quicker. Hux imagined he could smell the beer and whiskey from across the line. “You with your sister now? She took something of mine, Mercer, and if you value her fucking life you’ll give it back to me.”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” Hux answered, smirking darkly into the garden of marigolds and petunias. “You’re losing your mind, old man.”

“If I come over and find you have it, I’ll chop off your fucking balls.”

“I bet you’d like that,” Hux said cruelly. “I bet you’d like it if you could force me to not have kids, instead of watching me  _ choose _ not to have them. Tell me, does it burn you up inside, knowing you’re the last Elijah?” Silence on the other end of the line. “Let that sit a spell, old man. That’s what I’m remembering Ingram for. He left you behind with your stupid fucking name and nobody to give it to.”

Before his father could say anything, Hux hung up, his hands shaking and numb. He made it inside, the room spinning. He walked to the fridge, thinking to himself that he really needed water. Opening it up, he tried to recall the last meal he’d had. He clutched the fridge door in desperation. The room was spinning. Think, he ordered himself, when had he last eaten? Focus on that, then get yourself some food, you’ll be fine.

He groaned. He’d eaten pie with Avalyn, had had coffee, sweet tea, honeysuckle after honeysuckle but then? Hux realized he hadn’t eaten anything solid in days. The room was spinning. He called out Ren’s name, just once, as his eye caught his undrunk mug of tea on the counter, cold, with the teabag resting outside of it. The smell of cinammon and apples. Blue flowers with a yellow A on the front, red tea inside, all of the primaries right there leaking their color as the world turned to gray. As Hux fell, he caught the kitchen counter with his temple, saw stars, and then nothing.

* * *

 

Opening his eyes was a gamble, but Hux forced himself to blink once, then twice, and focused on the room. Avalyn at his side, white sheets, baby-blue blanket, beeping, a familiar scent to the air. Hux shuddered, blinking hard.

“Please tell me I’m not in a hospital,” he croaked. He felt too tight, as if his skin itself were fragile. He flexed his hand, feeling the intrusion of the needle there.

“You were dehydrated,” Avalyn said softly, “Delirious. You hit your head and it wouldn’t stop bleeding-”

“I hit my head?”

“You fainted, caught it on the counter. Ben ran in, you were talking about Ingram, babbling. He held a washcloth to your cut, got you in the car.”

“Did I get stitches?” Hux asked, finally looking up from the blanket he was covered with. His clothes were gone, he was strippd to his underwear and thin cloth pajamas. He stared at Avalyn, who looked scared for some reason. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s just…” she sucked her teeth, clearing her throat. She nodded, as if to herself, her eyes downcast. “I need to get Ben. He said he had to run to his apartment for something, but I bet he’s back now.”

“How long have I been here?”

“About ten hours. You’re under observation.”

“For what?”

“Concussion mainly…” Avalyn avoided his gaze again, wringing her hands as if she were preventing them from reaching out to touch her brother’s leg. Hux felt cold, so chilly, and it wasn’t just the nutrient drip in his hand that was freezing his heart. What had happened, why was he still here? Why wouldn’t Avalyn look at him? She left, mumbling something about Ben, and Hux was left looking down at his own hands.

A few minutes later, a soft knock on the door signaled he had a visitor. Hux struggled to keep his teeth from chattering and called for them to come in.

Instead of Ren, like Hux had expected, it was a doctor. She walked in, closed the door behind her, and came to check his drip.

“How are we feeling?”

“Confused, but fine otherwise,” Hux said. “I don’t remember getting here, so you’ll have to excuse me.”

“I see. You don’t remember what you talked about when you came in to us?”

“No.”

“You were mentioning suicide, Mr. Hux,” the doctor said gently. “It was unclear whether you intended to take your own life, so we kept you under observation for a while. Until you were awake enough to speak more clearly with us.”

Hux took a deep breath, his head pounding. He tried to recall what had happened right before he fell, before the room had spun. He remembered primary colors. Gray. He remembered the letter, and the knife he’d been tasked to destroy. He’d kept it in his suitcase, in his stuff at Avalyn’s house, it wasn’t safe.

“You seem to be panicking, a bit,” the doctor said, motioning for him to take deep breaths. “Don’t let this freak you out. You aren’t in any trouble, and we only want to help. It’s best if you’re honest with us. Do you intend to hurt yourself?”

“No, I don't,” Hux answered, bringing his hands up to cover his face without thinking, flinching away from the line across his temple. It felt so long. He brought his hands down, forcing himself to make eye contact with the doctor. “I wasn’t talking about my own suicide. I don’t remember, but I am pretty sure I would have been talking about my brother’s… recent passing.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” the doctor said quietly, and Hux could tell she didn’t believe him, not fully. He frowned, the movement pulling the muscles in his forehead harshly against the sutures therein.

“I’m not placating you, doctor. I don’t intend to hurt myself, or take my own life, ever. Now what do I need to do in order to get discharged?” He had to go. He had to get home, before Elijah sobered up and found a way to Avalyn’s himself.

* * *

 

The knock on the door made Hux flinch. He had his shirt off still, was trying to work out a way to pull the bloodied mess over his shoulders without it catching on the ten stitches he had over his eye. The left eye, just like the one Ing had lost.

“Come in, it’s not locked,” Hux said, not turning.

“Good, you’re up,” Ren said. Somehow, his presence both disturbed and relaxed Hux. He had so much to say to him, so much he needed to confirm. Over the past half an hour, memories of the letter and the conversation had come back to Hux. He knew more than he cared to know, but not enough to piece anything concrete together. He turned to his ex, trying not to let the sadness within him reach his eyes. “Oof. That’s going to leave a wicked scar.”

“I’m so sorry-”

“Don’t be,” Ren cut him off, lifting a duffel bag. “I brought clothes so that you didn’t have to wear that one. I can try to wash it, try to save it, if you like.”

“It’s probably a lost cause.” Hux held out the shirt over the trashcan, its black and white circuitry pattern stained brown and flecked with red. Head wounds were such a pain, he noted. He seemed to have bled like a hemophiliac.

“Well, I brought you this one,” Ren said with a small quirk of his lip. Hux took it, his fingers brushing against Ren’s as he did. He shivered, then gingerly pulled the shirt on without looking at it. He glanced down when Ren gave a small chuckle, and shook his head.

“You still have this shirt?” Hux asked, his tone light in disbelief. It was a t-shirt Hux had left once at Ren’s apartment, during one of his last visits. It had a city skyline in red on a black background, and had FIRST ORDER written in bold typewriter text across the front. He chuckled fondly. “I haven’t listened to this band in ages.”

“It smelled like you, so I kept it,” Ren said, shrugging. Hux snapped his gaze up, amazed at the simple honesty in the statement. Ren was large, imposing in all respects, but right now he was standing in a way that made it seem as if he wished he could disappear. He had his hands shoved in his jeans pockets, his face was a mask of neutrality, and he tilted his chin up to the ceiling instead of looking at Hux.

“Well,” Hux stepped forward, his boots scuffing the toe of one of Ren’s black Converse. “It smells like you now. So I guess it’s my turn to keep it.” Ren looked down at Hux, his eyes heavy-lidded, and Hux felt his chest catch. He had so much to say. He had so much to absolve Ren of, to forgive Ren for, and yet no words ever came out. Why was that? When he needed to speak the most, he never seemed to have the ability.

“I’m going to drive you back to my place,” Ren said resolutely, breaking the spell.

“No,” Hux blinked, stepping back slightly to gather his bearings.

“You… don’t want to?” he tilted his head. Hux frowned.

“It’s not that I don’t. But I have to go to Avalyn’s first. I have to pick up something I forgot.”

“Mmm.” Ren scratched the nape of his neck with one hand. “Would you want to… possibly pack up all of your stuff while you’re there?”

“Why would I do that?”

“So that you could just stay with me instead?” Ren murmured. Hux bit the inside of his cheek to supress a grin, almost showing the relief on his face but not quite.

“You don’t know how long I’m staying for,” Hux said as he turned to gather his other clothes together.

“I’ll take you for as long as I can get,” Ren answered. Hux paused, trying not to freeze as he tucked his wallet and keys into his pockets.

“Come in to help me pack, then, when we get home.” Hux turned, his mouth a thin line that gave nothing away. “It’ll be faster with you there helping me. Okay?”

Ren nodded, holding the door open for him, already pulling out the keys to his truck, the emerald H glinting in the fluorescent light.


	10. Chapter 10

“You’re going to have a wicked scar,” Ren repeated hours later, in the middle of the night when he finally pulled into the gravel driveway of the quarry. He parked, but did not move, so Hux stayed as well. The inner light of the car wouldn’t turn on unless they opened their doors, but neither moved to do so.

“It’s good, I think,” Hux whispered into the blue of the night. He turned to look out the window at the leaves rustling in the breeze, the color of Avalyn’s eyes with the filter of darkness over them. He was happy their visit to her house was over and done with, happy he had gotten everything out of there. It was cleansing, in a way.

He’d told her about the letter. She’d cried a bit, of course she had. At that point, Ren had started cleaning the kitchen, made himself busy elsewhere, as if he could sense it was a Hux sibling session.

“Good to have a scar?” Ren sounded patient, content. Hux nodded, bringing a hand up to the gauze taped over his eyebrow. Hux felt like Ren took that as he meant it, like he didn’t have to explain if he didn’t want to.

Avalyn, however, hadn’t believed Hux when he’d told her that Ingram had been suicidal. He’d explained a bit, had said that he’d show her later. Now that he was far away, though, he considered burning the letter. It seemed like a more merciful choice. Better to keep her nightmares from growing worse, if she even dreamed at all anymore. Once again, he would protect her and forget. Maybe in the future he could block that memory out too. That was what scared him, what made him think that yes, it was good to have a scar after all.

“I think that having something physical to remember this by is important to me.” Hux sighed deeply, picking at a fleck of blood on the knee of his jeans. “I have too much inside scarring from this fucking place, too much I’ve pushed down and away. It’s nice having some of it on the outside, you know? So I can’t forget it as easily.”

“I know,” Ren said gently. They looked at the moon together through the windshield, and Hux found himself feeling strangely at peace. The cold metal of the pocket knife was tucked safely into his jeans pocket, and the letter itself was folded inside of his wallet. It felt like Ingram’s ghost was there, between himself and Ren, watching the moon as well.

“Is the quarry just a giant hole?” Hux asked quietly. Ren turned to him, his head tilted.

“Kind of.” Ren shrugged. “They stopped draining it when my mom got sick, so over half of it’s freezing cold lake water.”

“Perfect.” Hux opened his door, unhooking his seatbelt as he leaned over. “Take me there.”

“Now?” Ren frowned. “You sure?”

“Yeah. There’s something I have to do. Some stuff I have to tell you.”

“We don’t have to talk right now, what with your…” Ren motioned to Hux’s head as he got out of the car too, shutting the door a bit harshly. Ren seemed uncomfortable, like he was about to run. Hux held out his hand.

“I’m okay if you’re okay.” He stared Ren down, daring him to walk past him without taking the offered digits, and Ren crumbled as Hux knew he would. He reached out slowly, slipping his fingers between Hux’s and sighing when their palms grazed one another. Hux nodded. “Take me to the quarry.”

At first, it was exciting. It felt like when they were in high school and they had snuck out of their respective homes to meet up together, stealing kisses while they pressed one another into the grass and pinecones of a drainage ditch, praying they could get away with it, their bodies lit from above by a green streetlight. They passed over the gravel parking lot, their shoes crunching in the pebbles, and then moved along the back side of the abandoned building that used to sell machinery and rock. Inside, Hux could make out chairs stacked on tables, bookshelves emptied of their contents, a show-floor. He shuddered at his reflection in the glass as they passed by, fading further and further from the light over Ren’s small stoop by his apartment. In a moment, they were encased completely in the dark of night, the light from Allenstand nowhere near to piercing the tranquility.

Hux felt his anxiety swelling with each step further into the woods they took. Ren was walking slowly, pulling back ferns and saplings, making sure that Hux was still with him, that Hux wasn’t stumbling. They moved back behind the store, behind the Organa-labeled machines that slept like giant monsters in their rusting skins, and Hux wondered if Ingram had ever followed Ren out this way. He wondered if Ingram had looked at the cavernous maw of the quarry hole and thought that it would be an easy death. He wondered if Ren had been suspicious of Ingram’s thoughts, if maybe he had kept the quarry away from the kid somehow.

Before Hux could get even further into his mind, they reached the precipice. The woods cleared, and the moon shone white and full over the naked bones of the earth that Ren’s mother had uncovered. Below them, about seventy feet, water rippled gently in the breeze. It wasn’t a clean drop. There were shelves of sheared rock hewn away in a stair-like formation, so there would be ledges to stand on if he were to trip and fall. Ren’s hand tight on his, however, made Hux feel absolutely certain that there was no danger of that. As if testing it, Hux kicked out and sent a small pebble careening down into the night. It bounced off of one of the ledges, skipped along the wall of unrefined limestone, and plunked into the water with barely a splash.

“Want to sit?” Ren asked. Hux swallowed, then nodded, settling gently to dangle his legs over the edge as Ren did the same. Between them, their fingers remained interlocked, tying them together. His nerves calmed, as if Ren were drawing his panic away with the touch of his fingers. Hux took a deep breath, steadying himself.

“So last night,” Hux said quietly. “You remember when you told me you had stuff to tell me?”

“Yeah.”

“That must have been difficult. To confess to me that there was more going on.”

“You deserve to know,” Ren said. He cleared his throat, paused. As if an afterthought, he repeated, “And I didn’t really confess anything yet.”

“Deserve is a strong word.” Hux paused, feeling the weight of the pocketknife against his hip, thankful that for once Ren was silent and waiting. Hux swallowed hard, turning to Ren in the light of the moon. “I should have seen what you were forced to do. I would’ve stopped you.”

Ren was facing straight ahead, his black jacket hood pulled up around his neck, his mouth closed and relaxed. He looked like the perfect image of someone who wanted to pretend to be unaffected, but Hux could see his lower lip twitch, even in the darkness.

“I know about the deal, Kylo,” Hux said resolutely, forcing it out before Ren could stop him. “I know about our parents. What my father did. What your mother did.”

“I can explain-”

“Just answer me one thing.” Hux hushed Ren with a hard squeeze of his fingers. The man waited, his eyes wide and scared and trained on Hux. His jaw was clenching and unclenching, as if Ren were physically chewing back the words he wanted to say aloud. Hux stared at him, trying not to be angry. When his voice bit out from between his teeth, it was tight and small. “What did your mother need the money for?”

Ren’s face darkened. He turned away from Hux, looked out over the empty space of the quarry before them. Hux wondered, painfully, if Ren had ever thought about jumping. Unable to bear the thought, Hux moved forward and grabbed Ren around the chest, throwing Ren backwards to the ground so that Hux could put an arm on either side of him. Ren looked disturbed, but went down wordlessly, pulling Hux to him as he fell. He cradled Hux in his arms as they lay back under the stars, and Hux couldn’t tell if it was his heart beating sharply against his chest or Ren’s.

Hux moved so that he was leaning over Ren, watching him. His lower lip was quivering. It needed to be kissed. Hux needed him to speak, now, immediately, otherwise he was going to kiss Ren until the sun came up.

“Please tell me what you used it for,” Hux begged, steadying himself by placing one hand between them on Ren’s chest. The touch seemed to rush through Ren’s torso, forcing him to inhale.

“We used the money to get her first set of biopsies,” Ren whispered. 

“Fuck.” Hux sighed, struggling to say more. Wind pushed his hair in front of his eyes, shielding him from having Ren see his hesitation. When the wind’s direction changed, when it brushed his bangs away from his forehead, Hux added, “You never told me. I never knew it was that bad.”

“I didn’t tell anyone,” Ren murmured, his expression resentful but not directed towards Hux. “It’s not your fault.”

“And my father paid her to make a deal with you?” Hux asked, needing the confirmation. “He told her he’d help her get her screenings if she forced you to hurt me?”

“Yes.”

“And she asked you to…” Hux closed his eyes against the image that still stayed with him, of Ren pressed against a wall, tears in his eyes, bruises around his neck, the grunting older man behind him finishing as Hux walked in the door.

“She told me I had to break your heart, so that we could try to fix hers,” Ren whispered. “She said if you ever came back to me, the deal was off, and we would owe your father the two grand in full, with interest.”

“Is that why you acted how you did, in the beginning? After the funeral?”

“How was I acting?”

“Like a complete dick. You reminded me of our breakup, you told me to fuck you to make myself feel better. It wasn’t you at all.”

Ren gulped, jaw clenching once more.

“I thought it would be easier if you still hated me,” Ren whispered.

“I’ve never hated you, Ren,” Hux said with harsh finality.

“You still could, though. You don’t know what I’ve done. I’ve changed, since you left,” he bit out, and Hux pressed down with his hand onto Ren’s heart. “I don’t know who I am anymore.”

“You’re still you. If you ever ask me to call you Ben again, I am beating the shit out of you, y’hear?” Hux watched as Ren gave up control, as he chuckled darkly at the thought. Hux smiled, relaxing a bit.

“I don’t have the money to pay back your father,” Ren whispered. His tone was weak, apologetic. Hux felt power surging through him, felt Ren’s heavy heartbeat under his own chest and how it was increasing with every question and accusation.

“You won’t have to,” Hux promised. Ren smiled off to the side, like he didn’t believe Hux for a minute. They both knew the extent to which Elijah Hux hunted down those who owed him. They both knew how ruthless he could be. Hux bit his lip, hard, but couldn’t stop himself. “I’m sorry,” he breathed.

There was a vast stretch of silence where only the breeze moved between them. Ren shifted beneath him, shaking his head slowly in the grass.

“You have nothing to apologize for, Hux.”

“I do. If I had been better, this would never have happened.” He shook his head, staring out over the quarry as a breeze combed through his hair. “I just wasn’t here.”

“You’re here now,” Ren whispered. “That’s enough.”

“How can you trust that I won’t just leave you again?” Hux asked, glossing over Ren’s placation. The man beneath him stirred, uncomfortable.

“I guess I can’t.”

Hux scoffed. He didn’t trust himself fully, either.

“I wouldn’t have helped me, you know, if I were you. I would have let me suffer and leave again.”

“I know.” Ren stared past Hux, up to the stars above them. “But I think that’s good, kinda. I wouldn’t love you if you were exactly like me,” Ren said, eyes heavy-lidded and mouth slack as he turned his gaze back to Hux’s.

Hux sat up, the shock of Ren’s confession freezing him in place.

“What did you say?” he asked.

“You heard me.”

Ren moved up onto his elbows, supporting Hux as they readjusted together. His dark hair looked like it was streaked with starlight, trails of comets manifested from the stress of having to live alone with what he’d done, what he’d been forced to do for a mother who’d left him behind as well. Hux let his hands fall from his own temples, tilted his head, and chuckled.

“You’re beautiful, in a really melodramatic way,” he whispered.

“And you’re in your head again,” Ren said, his lips quirking into a helpless smile.

“You’re jealous you can’t be in here with me,” he replied. Hux felt that telltale pull at his chest, the one that had made him confess in a flurry of afterglow his biggest shameful secret. He never should have left, because he hadn’t ever stopped loving Ren either.

But it wasn’t that easy. They couldn’t just come back together, not without more breaking. Hux cleared his throat, his euphoria at Ren’s confession crystalizing and cracking under that knowledge. Ren tilted his head, eyes narrowed.

“I brought you here to talk to you about something kind of heavy,” Hux said, getting more comfortable where he sat in the dirt. He pulled out the letter and the pocketknife, holding them in his fists. Ren looked down, then shifted his eyes back to Hux’s.

“Talking about love isn’t heavy enough for you?”

“I’m serious,” Hux whispered, feeling Ren’s words like a punch to his chest. He wanted to say it back, wanted to whisper it into his hair as they slept off the night’s problems. But he didn’t let himself.

“This can’t wait?” Ren asked, looking slightly put out that Hux was changing the subject. Maybe he had wanted a bigger reaction to his comment. Hux almost rolled his eyes, but was captivated by the dark hunger suddenly written in Ren’s gaze. The brunette sucked in his lower lip, biting it. “At least until after I’ve kissed you.”

“If you start kissing me, we’ll never stop.” Hux forced himself to look away, to gather himself. Hux’s back was to the cavern behind him, and if he closed his eyes he could hear the soft hush of the wind through the holes of the limestone. He sighed, opening them. “Did you hear what I was talking about with Avalyn earlier tonight?”

“A little bit, but I was trying to let you have your privacy,” Ren said, shifting the weight he held up on his elbows, but not sitting up entirely. “Does this have to do with why they kept you at the hospital?”

“You heard why they kept me?” Hux asked, frowning. That incapacitation had been more annoying than anything, but it seemed to worry both Ren and Ava both for reasons Hux found disturbing. Hux didn’t understand how they’d think he’d contemplate such a thing. Ren took a deep breath.

“When you were taken in for your stitches, you kept talking about suicide. Everyone thought you would-”

“You know that I would never.”

“I hope not.”

“I would  _ never _ do that, Ren,” Hux said resolutely, with as much chill as he could muster. Ren locked eyes with him, his gaze piercing, but Hux would not look away. Ren nodded, satisfied. Hux swallowed hard. “Look… the reason I was saying those things is, before I passed out, I found this note in some of Ingram’s stuff,” Hux waved feebly with the hand that held the letter, unsure of why he suddenly had the urge to grip it tightly and thrust it back into his pocket for safekeeping. He sniffed, disturbed by the reaction and left the letter dangling between them. “It kind of fucked me up, so you don’t have to read it if you don’t want to. But I needed to let you know.”

“What are you saying?”

“The suicide I was talking about…”

“What… you’re saying Ingram killed himself?”

Hux nodded, feeling renewed despair at the loss of his brother. He quelled it, closing his eyes and breathing in the sweet, cool air of the forest surrounding the quarry. In the distance, he could hear rustling, guessed it was deer or squirrels. He tried to focus on that instead of the pain, until he was calm enough to speak again. A heavy hand seemed to be on his shoulder, as if Ingram were waiting for the truth to come out.

He took a deep breath, then chewed his upper lip for a moment before blurting, “He talked about you, Ren. Said you helped him.”

Ren turned away, swiping at his eyes, the tears he’d left unshed before resurfacing in large, hot droplets. Hux almost wanted to smile. Ren had always cried so easily, like Hux’s sister, like Hux’s brother. All raw emotions. He watched, observing from the outside, as Ren’s sadness played in shadows on his face.

“It obviously wasn’t enough,” Ren finally said, his breath hitching in a hiccup at the final syllable. Hux moved forward, unable to resist any longer; he pressed a kiss between Ren’s eyebrows, right in the center of his forehead. Ren seemed to recenter himself at the touch, and his breathing began to calm. Hux moved away, but just as he was about to press his lips to Kylo’s a noise distracted him. The rustling from before was back, closer this time. It was pretty loud, sticks cracking as if trees were being broken down just behind them by some large animal.

“Ren,” Hux turned to the woods, about to ask if there were any bears in the area, but the words never escaped his throat.

A gunshot rang out, causing Hux to flinch and duck away from the noise. Birds took flight, or maybe bats, their wings all black against the night sky. Ren was on his knees in an instant, a hand supporting Hux as he swayed near the quarry’s edge. The letter fluttered to the ground, the pocketknife in the dirt by Hux’s knees. A staggering form stepped out of the shadows into the moonlight, a gun held desperately in its fist.

“Get up,” Elijah ordered as he moved out of the woods, snapping branches under his feet, gesturing with the Beretta for Ren and Hux to get to their feet. The two stayed immobile, the threat of a gun in their faces paralyzing them both. Elijah’s face distorted in anger. “I said get up!”

The roar from the man sent a wave of stale whiskey fumes and cigarette ashes over to them, and it must have woken them up from their stupor with its rank suggestion of violence. Ren and Hux both staggered to their feet with their hands up by their shoulders, and Hux put his shoe over the papers so that they wouldn’t blow away. The pocketknife stayed by his boot, glinting in the moonlight, too small a detail for his father to notice. Elijah Hux sober was one thing, but if he was drunk he was unpredictable. Hux felt crisis mode covering him, and some blank part of his memory felt like he had done this before.

What had Avalyn said? Hux had protected them. Hux had taken the beatings when their father was angry, he’d taken the rage. He had done it as a child; therefore, he reasoned, he could do it again now.

“Look,” Hux said calmly. “You don’t want to do this.”

“You don’t know what I want,” Elijah slurred, waving the gun over to Hux. Good, let it stay there. 

“Tell me, then,” Hux bargained. “I’ll do whatever you want, just put the gun down.”

“I want it back,” his father screamed, his voice echoing across the quarry, its broken, animalistic cry distorting among the rock faces and bouncing back to them almost demonic.

“I can’t bring him back. Ingram’s dead,” Hux said quietly.

“I don’t mean the fucking boy,” his father scoffed, the gun loose in his fingers. He shook his head. “I mean the name!”

Out of the corner of his eye, Hux saw Ren shift, and it was too obvious a motion. Elijah swung the gun around to Hux’s ex, his eyes dull pinpricks in the moonlight. Hux stammered out a cry, desperate to get the gun back on himself before his father fired again.

“Woah, woah, woah. You mean this? The knife? The knife with the name engraved, right?” He kicked at the dirt, motioning with one hand. Elijah pointed the gun at Hux, watching the ground.

“Pick it up. No, don’t, just kick it here.”

“Ah-ah. No. I need you to put the gun down, and then I’ll kick it over.” Hux stared at him, did not allow his father even a second to pull his eyes away.

“You think I’m stupid, boy?” Elijah asked, lowering the gun a minute amount, just enough for his arm to fly across his torso as Ren tackled him sideways.

The two men fell to the ground, and Hux heard a crack as heavy plastic and metal fell to the dirt. Hux went to grab the gun, to de-escalate the sitaution, but with a jerk his father kicked it over the ledge. It fell, sailing through the air like it was weightless, and then splashed into the quarry lake like a discarded carcass.

There was a scream, Ren shouting out in pain, and a growl of rage from his father Hux panicked. He dropped down, picked up the knife, flicked it open, and lunged.

He didn’t know what he intended to do with the swing, it was a visceral reaction. He needed his father off of Ren, needed to keep Ren safe. When it connected with flesh, it didn’t feel real. It was too squishy, somehow, and yet had stopped the blade entirely. The knife had connected with his father’s outstretched palm, and Hux could feel bone catching. His father screamed, but he did not let go. Hux watched, horrified, as his father actually gripped the blade harder.

Elijah was huffing like a wild boar, the pain of the deep cut combined with the pulling and pushing he was doing almost too much for him. His other fist, the one not impaired by the knife, broke free of Ren’s grip and connected squarely with Hux’s jaw. Hux saw white, then a burst of pinpricks and dots. He took a knee, shook his head; he was trying to stay present, refusing to pass out a second time that day, but he could already feel his grip weakening. Elijah shouted one last time and broke the knife from Hux’s fingers, immediately swinging it at Ren’s face. Ren cried out as the knife connected, falling away from Elijah as Hux scrambled to pull him to safety.

“Ren!” Hux shouted, but there was no reply besides a low moan. The amount of blood under Ren’s fingers looked black in the starlight, and Hux felt himself swaying. His father, a beast unrecognizable in the gray-blue light of the moon, began to laugh. He got to his feet with a sickening groan.

“You think you can keep him safe, Mercer?” Elijah asked. He walked over, step by step, until his shadow was blocking all light from the moon and had engulfed Hux in complete darkness. He laughed harder, and Hux felt pinned. He was a child once more, about to be pushed out of his chair, helpless to fight back. His father caught his breath. “Look at you. You can’t even save yourself.”

“Enough!” Ren snarled, kicking out violently. There was a snapping sound as Ren’s Converse connected with a kneecap, a garbled noise as Elijah let go of the knife and took a staggering step backwards. His scream pierced the air only for a brief moment as he fell, his body bouncing off of the rock walls and forcing out grunts that cut off his wind. Hux stared at the empty space where his father had been standing just a moment ago, listening for the splash. He hit the water, and there was nothing but quiet.

“What have you done?” Hux whispered, but he wasn’t sure who he was talking to. “Oh God. What have you done?!”

“Hux!” Ren moaned. “Call a fucking ambulance!”


	11. Chapter 11

“Weren’t you just here?” a nurse passing by asked Hux as he played on his phone. Hux glanced up caustically past the cold can of Sprite he was holding to his bruised jaw. The nurse wisely moved along, leaving him to his Sudoku. Hux followed her with his eyes, daring her to come back, almost craving the confrontation. He sat a bit straighter in his chair, then checked his watch for the fifth time in the last minute.

“They’ll get here when they get here,” Ren said gently, reaching his hand out across the sheets for Hux’s. Hux put the can of Sprite into Ren’s fist, deliberately misunderstanding. He didn’t want to hold hands.

“It’s been three hours since we got you to the hospital, that’s like four total hours of that wound being open, what could they possibly be doing to make you wait this long-”

“They’re probably preoccupied with how they had to medivac your father here,” Ren mumbled. Hux was quiet, staring at the squares of numbers that normally brought him comfort in times of stress. Tonight, they were less than soothing. There was a pop of carbonation as Ren snapped the tab open on the Sprite and took a sip. “How’s your face?”

“Better than yours,” Hux retorted. He meant for it to sound concerned, but it just came out combative. Luckily, Ren laughed. Of all the things he could have done, he laughed. The action made him wince, and with the hand not holding the Sprite can he re-adjusted the square of bloody gauze over the giant slash over his nose and cheek. “Can I get you anything?”

“A straw would be nice,” Ren said. “Otherwise I’m gonna dump this soda all over myself.”

“Is that all?” Hux asked. “Just a straw?”

“It’s all I need.”

What he really needed was for a nurse to come in here, put some anaesthetic on the gaping wound over his face, and stitch him up. Hux stood up before he could get angrier. Ren’s cheek and nose were going to carry that scar, the longer they waited to stitch him up the more prominent it would be. He was half-tempted to try it himself, if he could find some needle and thread. He’d go medieval, pour some alcohol on it to sterilize it and then stitch up his ex little by little through the pain.

But Ren just wanted a straw.

Hux closed the door behind himself, wandering around until he found himself in the hospital cafeteria. A shock of red hair in a bun, a sweater, a cup of styrofoam coffee. Hux walked up to his sister, clearing his throat behind her because he couldn’t think of anything to say. She turned, and he expected her to stay seated and look at him with cold eyes the color of the water he’d watched them fish his father out of. Instead, she stood and opened her arms.

Hux hesitated. He didn’t know that he wanted to be touched, didn’t feel worthy of any compassion after the day’s events. To be honest, he felt quite numb inside, overloaded, unable to cope. But he felt himself moving forward, dipping his head to fit in the crook of her neck, and holding her as she hugged him.

“Oh Duke,” Avalyn whispered, crying on him. Normally the tears would make him shy away, uncomfortable by the display, but Hux felt no such urge tonight. He sighed, supporting her, taking in that pain. It was the least he could do. It was short, Avalyn’s tears soothing her as soon as they evaporated off her cheeks, and it was simpler after that.

They talked for a minute while Hux ordered coffee (with two extra straws). His father was alive, but unconscious. Avalyn said that their mother wasn’t going to be pressing charges, but there was no telling what Elijah would do once he was conscious again. They had no case, but it would ruin the already broke Organa family to have to pay for legal fees, possibly forcing Leia herself to come home from treatment. For now, Ren was fine to leave once he got his stitches. He wasn’t being asked to stick around if he didn’t want to.

“The police already interviewed him asking for his statement twice,” Hux said bitterly, thinking about how in that time he could’ve gotten twice the amount of stitches and be home already.

“He’s still waiting, huh?” Ava asked, observing Hux’s tense posture. Hux tried to relax his shoulders, failed, and nodded. The barista handed him his coffee and straws, and both Hux and Avalyn moved to walk back to Ren’s room together. “Just so you know, before he passed out, Dad was asking about a pocketknife.”

“It fell into the water with him,” Hux answered immediately, wanting to be done with the conversation. Avalyn shuddered at his tone, and he sighed, trying to gentle himself. “You want to know the good part about all this shit, Bo?”

“Sure,” she shrugged.

“When I stand next to Ben now, nobody will even notice my scar,” Hux said, laughing a bit to himself. “Not with what he’s going to have going on.”

“You’re the worst,” Avalyn chuckled. They paused in the elevator that would lead them up to the floor Ren was on, and Ava leaned her head on Hux’s shoulder. “We’re kind of fucked up, as Huxes, you know.”

“I know.”

“But I’m glad you stayed with us anyway,” she said. Hux made to argue with her, to protest that he hadn’t, but he shut his mouth as her meaning dawned on him. He did not kill himself, even when he had been hurting. He was still here, surviving, enduring. He had stayed.

“Yeah,” Hux whispered, feeling too warm. “Me too.”

They walked up to Ren’s room right as two nurses with a tray of instruments made their way to the door. Hux held it open for them, biting hard on his tongue so that he did not snap anything like ‘about damn time’ or ‘where the fuck have you been’ to the nurses. Avalyn seemed to know what he was thinking, because she squeezed his shoulder reassuringly and went to sit on the oposite side of the room out of the way.

“Hey,” Ren waved to Ava as the nurses positioned their tools near his face and lifted the gauze gingerly. Ren winced as it pulled against his exposed flesh. Hux forced himself to stare at the gash running across Ren’s face, slicing his pale skin upwards in a diagonal flash of red. Ren’s eyes focused on Hux. “You get my straw?”

“I got two.”

“You think I need a backup straw?” Ren asked, laughing a bit. He closed his eyes as the nurses started to speak, interrupting him.

“We’re gonna inject an anaesthetic now, okay? It looks like a big needle but it won’t hurt but a pinch,” the young man out of the pair said softly. He had a sweet face, Hux noted. The other nurse, a taller woman with ice blonde hair, wielded the needle.

“Do what you gotta do,” Ren said, his eyes shut. Hux walked over to the other side of the bed across from where the nurses were standing, and took the Sprite can from Ren’s fingers. He replaced it with his own, the one hand that was not holding his coffee. He felt Ren clench his digits involuntarily as the first stab of the little needle found the inside of the cut. It seemed like this was the most painful part, from the way Ren’s jaw was twitching. The blonde worked quickly, not hesitating even once when Ren flinched at her gloved hand on his temple.

“Steady,” Hux said in a low voice, but he wasn’t speaking to the nurse. Ren seemed to know it, opening the eye closest to Hux in order to glare at him. Hux raised an eyebrow, smirking.

“Alright, all finished with that. We’re going to go ahead and stitch you up now, it’s going to feel a bit weird,” the male nurse said, even though he hadn’t done a thing.

“I can handle it,” Ren said, his low voice gravelly with threat. “Just do it.”

“I’m sure you can, sir,” the male nurse said, barely covering a stutter, “I just want you to know that you have to lie still even though it’s going to hurt-”

“Son, if you try to baby me through this, I will choke you. I’ve had a bit of a rough night, in case you couldn’t tell.”

“I understand, sir,” the nurse stammered. “But I must insist that you understand the procedure before-”

“I’ve waited four fucking hours to get this gigantic slash sewn up, you think I care what you do at this point? I don’t give a fuck if it’s even, or if my face looks like it got set on fire and put out by an ugly stick. Just get. The cut. Sewn!”

“What Nurse Mitaka is trying to say,” the blonde nurse said in a cool, commanding voice, “is that he wants you to feel at ease, and to kindly not thrash through the procedure the way you just did right now with the injections.”

“I’m not going to feel at ease until you’ve quit waving that fucking needle in front of my eyes,” Ren snapped. The blonde seemed darkly amused, her tight lipped focus breaking only for her to glance up at Hux with a curt smile.

“Your boyfriend always throw such loud tantrums when he’s frightened?” she asked, dipping the needle strung with filament to Ren’s cheek where the gash started. Ren grunted at the pressure when she pierced his skin and began to thread through.

“Yep,” Hux teased. “You’re lucky he doesn’t have anything to swing around. One time he was so nervous before a court date for a traffic violation that he broke through the drywall with my mother’s rolling pin.” Ren curled his lip, keeping his eyes closed as the blonde nurse gently kept his skin taut. She laced the stitches deftly and evenly, Hux’s ever-watchful eye trained on her movements. He made sure not to block the light, and after a moment of tense silence the nurse named Mitaka moved over to ask Avalyn if she wanted him to get her anything.

“I was curious how bad the cut would be,” the blonde nurse said, almost to herself.

“Why’s that?” Hux asked. The nurse looked up, raising an eyebrow as if Hux were stupid.

“It’s intensely cosmetic, a gash across the face. No other nurses wanted to touch it, for fear of messing it up.”

“I’m glad you don’t shy away from a challenge,” Hux said calmly, even though the thought of Ren’s face marred beyond recognition sent waves of anxiety through his already stressed body. “What’s your name, ma’am?” he asked, mainly to distract himself. He took a sip of his coffee, which was already growing a bit cold.

“Trisha Huntington, but the nurses just call me Phasma.”

“And why’s that?” Hux asked, admiring the way she could work so evenly while carrying a conversation. Avalyn hadn’t asked for anything, so Mitaka was once again by Phasma’s side. He quietly prepped her instruments, helping her get the thread ready, as she was sewing each stitch on an individual piece. Hux figured this way, if Ren popped one of them through his over-exagerrated facial expressions, it wouldn’t ruin the entire line of them. Smart choice.

“It’s my nickname. I ghost in and out of the ward, getting shit done,” Nurse Phasma replied.

“You’re in charge, then?”

“Yes. You could say that.”

“Can you explain to me why it took three hours for someone to stitch my boyfriend’s face, then?” Hux asked, his voice exhausted and rough. Ren peeked out at him from under the blue latex of Phasma’s fingers, smirking. Hux ignored him.

“Duke don’t be rude-” Avalyn protested, but Phasma lifted a hand towards his sister and smiled.

“It’s alright.” She turned to Hux. “It has to do with the emergency surgery we had to give to your father for his spinal injuries, Mr. Hux. But also, like I said, the nerves of the younger crew. If they’d administered anything like a topical anaesthetic, it could have affected how tightly I could get the wound closed in the end. I am sorry for him having to go through the pain, though.” She held Hux’s gaze, daring him to look away. Hux stared at her with calm, unperturbed green eyes, and she seemed to soften. “Not that I’m supposed to say this, but I heard about what happened to your brother. So then, to have this happen too? I would be the same as you.” She turned back to the stitches.

“And how am I?” Hux asked, frustrated that she wasn’t more intimidated by him.

“Scrappy,” Phasma replied immediately. “Just like your boyfriend. Now please either go sit by your sister or shut up and let me finish stitching Mr. Solo’s face together.”

Hux opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by a bark of laughter from Ren.

“I like this woman, Hux,” Ren chuckled. Hux considered asking Phasma to stitch Ren’s mouth shut while she was at it, but instead contented himself to pulling up a chair closer to Ren’s side so that he could sit and drink his coffee in sullen silence.

* * *

 

After Ren had been discharged, with a packet on how to care for the stitches in his face in one hand and a prescription for an antibiotic in the other, Avalyn walked them out to Hux’s car. She kissed them both goodnight, telling them she was going to stay until their father woke up, maybe convince their mother to get some rest.

“I’ll be at Ben’s if you need me,” Hux said, moving to get into the driver’s side. He paused, standing with the door open. “I’ll be staying in Allenstand for a few more days, then going back to Baltimore.”

“Already?” Avalyn asked.

“I need to go back, yeah,” Hux said with a wry smile. His sister nodded, understanding, even though she didn’t particularly look excited about the prospect of having Hux absent once more.

Ren glanced over with his uncovered eye, then threw himself into the front seat and slammed the door. Avalyn stared at Hux, as if to say, ‘good luck’, then walked back to the hospital doors. Hux sighed, getting into the car, prepared for the silent treatment.

“Do you care which pharmacy we go to in the morning for your prescription?” Hux asked. Ren shook his head, staring out the windshield. “Do you want Kerr Drug, or Walgreens?”

“Don’t care, I said,” Ren bit out.

“Tell me which one is closer.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Ren replied.

“Are you gonna pout the whole ride home?” Hux demanded, annoyed and exhausted. Ren didn’t answer, but his scowl deepened. Hux even saw a flash of canine as his lip curled. He sighed loudly. “Tomorrow I have too much shit to do, I don’t need you grumpy and unresponsive on top of it. I’ve got to go to a pharmacy to get you your prescription and some Vitamin E lotion, so that your face doesn’t look even more fucked up when they take the stitches out.” He put his blinker on angrily, stopping at a red light and gesturing wildly with his hand in Ren’s direction. “I’ve got to help Avalyn clear out the rest of Ingram’s stuff before I go, now that my mother is out of commission, which would be really nice to have your help with. And on top of that, I’ve got to call a U-haul company to see about renting a truck, and then pack all your shit up to move to Baltimore while you’re on fucking bedrest! I won’t even have time to clean up before you move in, I left the place a goddamn mess. So needless to say I’m a bit stressed.” Hux looked both ways as the light turned green, then merged onto the highway as he deliberately ignored Ren’s wide-eyed stare of surprise. “If you could please stop being a baby and tell me which pharmacy is closer to your apartment, I would really appreciate it.”

There was no sound for a while, except for the purr of Hux’s car as he switched gears. Before he could lift his fingers from the stick shift, he felt Ren’s hand cover his. It squeezed hard, moving his wrist so that Ren could lock his fingers in Hux’s, as if he couldn’t get his hand close enough. When Hux glanced over, however, Ren was looking out the window at the cars they passed. In the reflection of the window, Hux noticed his eyes were closed, a look of relief painted across his features.

“Walgreens is closer,” Ren said, his voice low. Hux smiled, and Ren gave a small laugh.

“What?”

“You don’t ever get to call me melodramatic again,” Ren chuckled. “Not after this shit. Not for the rest of our lives.”

Hux went to argue, based off of Ren’s tantrum in the hospital just now, but shut his mouth after a second. Rather than admitting Ren had a fair point, Hux turned on the radio with their hands still holding each other, grateful that it was nighttime so that Ren could not see the faint blush that had crept up onto Hux’s cheeks and ears.

“I’ve got other things I could call you besides dramatic,” Hux mumbled, trying to regain control of the conversation. “Sweet might be pretty high up there. Patient. Wonderful. When you’re behaving yourself, I mean,” Hux amended. Ren let out a tiny noise, almost close to a moan of surprise, and Hux glanced over. A passing car going the opposite direction lit up the man’s face right before Ren brought his hand up to cover his frown. Even with the blood he’d lost earlier, he seemed to be able to blush just fine.

Before Hux could compliment him further to see how much he could stand, Ren jerked forward and turned the volume up on the radio with a slap of his hand. Hux laughed, letting him keep it loud, as if the notes from the song could cover up how undone Ren was by a few words of praise. They left Asheville behind them, the windshield slightly fogged from their breath as they drove through the surprisingly chilly night.

* * *

 

They hadn’t been very tired on the drive back, but the night caught up to them as soon as Hux parked the car. With heavy feet, Ren got into bed and was immediately out. Having set a few advil and a knockoff sports drink by the bed in case Ren woke up in pain, and having draped the comforter over Ren’s hips, Hux walked outside into the gray of the early morning. He traced the path his father had bumbled through a few hours before, pushed aside broken sticks and half-bent saplings, and walked all the way to the edge of the quarry.

He had been pulled to it for a while now, had needed to be here. He’d thought, last night, that he would feel satisfied seeing it with Ren, but it was so different alone and in the wee morning hours. It seemed more terrifying now that it was being lit up by more than just the moon. Seemed deeper, somehow. Larger. It had been dreamlike, last night, especially in the desperate throes of the fight. Almost like it wasn’t real.

But it had been horribly real for Hux’s father. Hux looked up, trying to picture the helicopter that had fished Elijah Hux from the water. Even though it had only been hours since it had happened, he couldn’t envision it. It hadn’t been important to him at the time. Getting Ren to the hospital had been the only thing on Hux’s mind.

The bones of the earth had swallowed Elijah, swallowed the past, and now they relaxed as if they were waiting for the sun to bleach them even whiter as they digested it. It felt freeing and terrifying, being on the edge and watching the smallest yellow light of dawn peeking over the edge of the mountaintops. Hux licked his lips, could practically taste summertime kissing him goodbye. It would be fall soon. Gone would be the nectar, the warm thunderstorms, the overturning leaves the color of his brother’s eyes.

In the morning, Hux would call the movers. While Ren was asleep, Hux would go to the pharmacy. While he was out, Hux would also go to the bank to withdraw four thousand dollars from his savings. He would drop that off with Avalyn, explain to her what it was meant for, and make sure that Ren did not find out about it until after they were home in Maryland. On the way back to the quarry, Hux figured that he would go to the liquor stores nearby to grab up some cardboard boxes for packing. Any little bit would help. It would be a busy day.

Sighing as he watched the gray light around him being suffused with pastels, Hux approved of this plan. It was cleansing, having an idea of what steps needed to be taken to heal. And then Hux would finally be able to go home to the dark-haired man that awaited him, the man with scars to rival his own.

He turned to leave, but his boot brushed against something heavy. Hux paused, squatting down. He gave a humorless laugh at the dirt-covered pocketknife, hidden in the scuffle, still waiting for Hux to fulfill its last owner’s task. It was open, stained crimson, with chunks of debris stuck to its blade. As Hux brushed the dirt aside to close the knife, he saw the crumpled pages of the letter beside it. Ingram’s words torn to bits, stepped on, ripped up, and scattered to the wind. The sight made Hux angry, for some reason, even though he himself had intended to burn it.

He stood with the knife in his hand, about to throw it into the gray-white of the limestone below. He was going to do it. This was Ingram’s last wish, he had to do it. He had to let him go. But for some reason, Hux couldn’t.

He was shaking, trembling, the knife suddenly so heavy in his palm that his arm threatened to buckle under its weight. How could Hux be contemplating throwing it, a voice welled up inside to ask. He hadn’t been to Ingram’s grave, had not been able to say a proper goodbye to his little brother in any sense of the word. What was he doing, about to throw away the one thing Ing had left for him? Even if it was an evil thing, it was better than nothing, right? Shouldn’t Hux keep it? Treasure it? Try to feel Ingram’s ghost beside him for as long as he could? Hux felt his arm lowering against his own volition, his chest tight with guilt as if he were belted in by his past absences.

He looked out into the gray of the morning, but there was hardly any space untouched by the rising sun. A few minutes had made all the difference; color slowly suffused the world around him, reminding him that he could not live where his brother had lived before him. He wanted to remember the buttery light of this moment, not the colorless reality that Ing had suffered inside of.

The knife in his hand no longer felt fragile, or like something worth protecting. It was heavy, and he was going to be rid of it for good. Hux was going to do it for his little brother, the goodbye he’d never gotten to say while he was alive. He reared his arm back, aiming for a high point above the quarry, and then threw the pocketknife as hard as he could out into the empty space.

It arced beatifully, twirling in the stretching sunlight and reflecting yellows and golds back to Hux as he watched on the edge of the rockface. Hux stared after it, even after the baby blue water below had swallowed it down into its depths. Only when he glanced up into the far-reaching rays of the sun did Hux feel that he could turn back and walk through the woods to Ren’s place on steady legs.

Pushing through the summer leaves that were already fading to gold, Hux decided that he wanted to be there when Kylo woke up, to kiss the comets trailing through his hair as daylight colored their skin. Everything else could wait for a few moments longer at least.


End file.
